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The latest update as of October 14, 2025

TOP ALCOHOL Points Standings

There were a number of significant changes in the standings at the conclusion of the NHRA Texas FallNationals. Among them were the elimination from championship contention of #2 Matt Cummings and #3 Jackie Fricke. Cummings went down hard in the first round of eliminations, smoking the tires hard early and having his hopes disappear in the smokefest. With no more events left on his dance card, he's out of the picture. Fricke lost in what could be an absolutely pivotal quarter-final matchup with points leader Shawn Cowie. She left first by half a tenth, but carried the front wheels before setting them down just past the 330' mark. That cost her as she fell behind and crossed the finish line a car length behind Cowie.

Extending his points lead by only 11 markers was Shawn Cowie, as he went down in an all-blown alcohol pairing against Jon Bradford in the semifinals. Even though he lost to Severance in the final round, Bradford moved up one spot to #9, and still holds a slim chance of overtaking Cowie for the championship. All he has to do is win all four of the remaining events on the schedule. Very, very long odds indeed.

Going into the final month of the season there are only three racers with a chance to take the championship, with the balance of the top ten (and below) already out of contention. Making the biggest move towards the top of the ladder was Joey Severance as he doubled up at the Motorplex, taking the JEGS All-Stars race within a race, and the FallNationals trophy too. That vaulted him from #8 all the way to #4 in the standings. Although he trails Cowie by 127 points, he could match, and even overtake, the leader before the end of the season.

If he can win the regional event at Phoenix, he would only be 85 points behind Cowie. And if he can win the Dodge NHRA Nevada Nationals, and Cowie loses before the semifinals, they would be tied for the lead going into the final event of the season at Pomona. Is that drama, or what?

The gap between the top two racers in the standings widened from 41 to 84 points at the FallNationals. Opening up the gap was Sean Bellemeur as he was able to overcome the low e.t. and top speed runner, Stan Sipos, the comebacking Victoria, BC veteran. Directly below Bellemeur in the standings sits Brian Hough, who suffered a very tough first round loss and missed a major chance to close the margin to the top spot. Falling even harder was sophomore Maddi Gordon, who also went out in the opening round, and fell from #3 to #5, and was eliminated from contention for the championship.

With the balance of the Top Ten runners already out of contention going into the FallNationals, it's come down to a two-car race to the 2025 Championship. Bellemeur has already taken the crown five times, while Hough is still trying to get to the top rung. He's been close, finishing second in 2019, and in the top ten for the past seven years, but he's still looking for the BIG championship trophy.

Hough has both Las Vegas and Pomona on his national event schedule, while Bellemeur has only the Vegas race left to improve his points total. After back-to-back wins at Reading and Charlotte, Hough came into Texas on a heater, but went stone cold at the worst possible time. However, he can pick up enough points to overtake Bellemeur.... IF .... he can win both national events, and take out the one regional event he has left to claim. But it could all become academic if Bellemeur can take win at the Nevada Nationals, which would clinch him the title.

PRO Points Standings

When the tire and engine smoke cleared at the conclusion of the Texas FallNationals, the points picture(s) came into a much sharper focus. Just two events remain on the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, and the points earning opportunities are dwindling after each round of eliminations at them. The theoretical maxium number of points a racer could accumulate at Las Vegas are 130 and Pomona 191 (points and a half on offer). As can be seen by the amount of total points for racers in the various classes, a number of competitors are already on the outside of contention for the championship(s).

TOP FUEL

Coming into the Texas race, four racers were less than 100 points behind the leader, Doug Kalitta. And the next three below them were less than 140 points out of first place. That changed very quickly as Kalitta steamrolled his way through the field, advancing to his fourth consecutive final round. Taking it back a little further, that made six final rounds for him at the last seven races. Still holding the #2 spot in the standings, Justin Ashley dropped from just 38 points behind to a relatively massive deficit of 141 points. Kalitta's teammate Shawn Langdon fell exactly 100 points further behind, and now sits 159 out of first place.

Below Langdon, the numbers drop off quickly, with Steve Torrence 228 behind and announcing that he won't be competing at the last two races of the season. After him, there's three racers bunched closesly together but all further behind and realistically out of contention. At this point it's going to take a pair of early - like round one - exits for Kalitta to feel anyone gaining on him. To put it in perspective, Kalitta would have to lose in the first round at Vegas, and Ashley or Langdon would have to win the event to close the gap to somewhere between 50 to 90 points. Then it would take another early loss for Kalitta and at least a semifinal appearance for Ashley or Langdon to overtake the heir to the championship.

It could happen, but I certainly would be very surprised to see it play out that way.

FUNNY CAR

Similarly to Top Fuel, the points gap in Funny Car widened considerably at the FallNationals. Leader Austin Prock opened a huge gap over #2 Matt Hagan, going from 20 to 112 points ahead, courtesy of Prock's event win and Hagan's first round loss. The #3 and #4 racers, Jack Beckman and Ron Capps, respectively, fell further back. Beckman dropped another 66 points in arreears, while Capps went to the final round and only dropped 24 points further behind. After the top four, the resurgent Daniel Wilkerson is teetering on the contention precipice, despite three straight semifinal finishes in the countdown. He's 189 points out of the top spot and it's a "slim and none" proposition for Team Wilk.

The bottom half of the Top Ten, and the four "participation" entrants in the countdown are effectively out of the hunt for the championship, with the #13 and #14 already mathematically removed from contention, and the others almost certain to be eliminated at Las Vegas.

PRO STOCK

It's been a two-horse race in Pro Stock from the opening event of the season, the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals, with KB-Titan teammates, Dallas Glenn and Greg Anderson locked into the top two spots in the standings. It's been a see-saw battle all the way, with Glenn and Anderson trading the top rung on the ladder on an almost race by race basis. Going into the semifinals at the Motorplex, the gap between them was just 20 points, with Glenn in the lead, but when Anderson lost in that round, and Glenn went on to the event win, that 20 points suddenly became 60 markers.

While that's far from an insurmountable margin, the pressure is squarely on Greg Anderson to match wheels with Glenn and not let him widen the lead going into the final race of the season at Pomona. Almost forgotten in third place is Matt Hartford, who has held that position for most of the season, but he's rapidly running out of runway, dropping an extra 65 points behind Glenn. At 225 points out of first place, his championship hopes are almost gone, and below him it's game over for the rest of the countdown contenders, with six of them already out of even a mathematical chance to overtake the leader.

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE

Courtesy of his second event win in three races, Richard Gadson put some distance between himself and closest pursuer Gaige Herrara. Gadson went from 29 points in front to 72, and in the #3 spot, Matt Smith fell even further, going from 53 points back to 105 and in danger of dropping out of contention. Below him, the odds get much longer, much quicker, with #4 Brayden Davis already 186 points out of first place, despite two consecutive final round appearances. And at the bottom of the Top Ten, the #9 and #10 riders are already done, mathematically.

It's going to take a major lapse by Gadson, and some great performances by Herrara or Smith to make it to Pomona before the championship is decided.

That's all for today's update, tomorrow we'll work on filling in some of the blanks in our event coverage in recent years. Without any major events on the calendar for two weeks we will have some time to work on stuff in the background.

The latest update as of October 13, 2025

Shawn Cowie's "Close but no Cigar" weekend

Going into the Texas FallNationals, the points chase in Top Alcohol Dragster was very tight. Tied at the top of the standings, were defending champion, Shawn Cowie, and Matt Cummings. The first started with Cowie in the #9 qualifying position, facing #8 Madison Payne. The winner of that match would have to face either the low qualifier, Jackie Fricke or #16 qualifier Karl Brounkowski. The odds seriously favoured Fricke, in case you're wondering.

With almost no difference between their qualifying times, Madison Payne in at 5.267 and Shawn Cowie just a thousandth behind at 5.268, it was basically a toss-up as to who the favourite was. As you can see from the graphic, they left together before Cowie increased the lead to almost a tenth of a second by the 330' marker. But the bigger horsepower of the A/Fuel car started narrowing the gap at half track, as Payne was going 10 mph faster than Cowie at the 660' timers. The lead got even slimmer by the 1000' clocks, with Cowie only 25 thousandths in front, but he managed to hold on at the finish line, turning on the winlight by just one thousandth of a second at the stripe. After a long, slow exhale by everyone, it was on to the quarter-finals for the Mundies Towing team.

This race had very serious championship implications on the line, with Cowie only 33 points in front of Fricke. If she could win this round and go on to win the event, the John Finke-owned car, driven by Jackie Fricke, would be in the points lead. It doesn't get much more tense than that for the drivers, even with a number of races left on the schedule. Fricke cut a much better light, gaining a full five hundredths out of the gate, but gave it back, and then some, by the 60' mark. As Fricke's car went into a wheelstand, Cowie started to pull away and had more than a full car length on the A/Fuel car by half track. Even though Fricke charged hard on the top end, it was a car length between them at the 1320' mark. The loss eliminated Fricke from championship contention and gave Cowie the undisputed points lead, 11 markers in front of Matt Cummings.

On Sunday afternoon it was the semifinals featuring three out of the four cars running supercharged on alcohol. The pair of Jon Bradford and Shawn Cowie led off the round, and Bradford held lane choice. Cowie knew he was in deep as his best of the meet was a first round 5.218, while Bradford had run a career best 5.183 - 279.35 in the electronic fuel injection torque converter car. Bradford left the line first by nearly three hundredths and annihilated the 60' timers with a Severance-like .892 interval time to 67 thousandths. From there to the finish line, Bradford held his lead, crossing the finish line a little more than a car length in front, advancing to the final round for the second time in his career.

While Shawn Cowie came out of the event with the points lead, and saw his two closest pursuers eliminated from championship contention, he was facing the propsect of having to deal with both Jon Bradford and Joey Severance in what might turn into a three-way battle between the blown alky cars for the 2025 Top Alcohol World Championship. Stay tuned over the next month as this is absolutely guaranteed to get more than interesting.

Due to a day-long power outage on Sunday, we've presented these highlights a day late. Next up is the points standings in the Pro and Pro Sportsman categories, coming tomorrow.

The latest update as of October 11, 2025

WOWIE.... ZOWIE.... it's COWIE!!!

While there is still a mathematical possibility that four drivers could catch Shawn Cowie for the Top Alcohol Dragster Championship this year, the odds are getting longer by the hour/day/week. In the second round of eliminations today at the Texas Motorplex, the two closest pursuers fell by the wayside and were removed from contention for the title. Matt Cummings, who came into the event tied for the lead with Cowie, lost in the first round of eliminations, and Cowie's win in the next round moved him 11 points ahead. With no more points earnings opportunities left for Cummings he was out of the chase.

The second round proved very pivotal for Cowie, as the #3 driver in the standings, Jackie Fricke faced him, and if she won the round, would only be 22 points in arrears, with a solid possibility of overtaking Cowie for the points lead. If she won the FallNationals, the points earned would put her 10 points above Cowie going into the final two events of the season. The only advantage that Shawn would have is two more points earnings opportunities, as opposed to just a single one for Fricke. Frankly, the championship is almost certain to have been decided in that round of racing this afternoon.

And then there were.... TWO

The Top Alcohol Funny Car championship contenders were whittled down to just two as Maddi Gordon lost in the second round of eliminations today and was dropped from contention for the Championship. Her early-ish demise came at the hands of the low qualifier, and suddenly dominating, Stan Sipos of Victoria, BC Canada, with Les Davenport (Calgary, AB Canada) calling the tuneup shots. The round win earned Sipos a bye run into the final tomorrow.

The #2 driver in the standings, Brian Hough lost in the opening round at the hands of Ms. Gordon, as he was unable to replicate his 5.47 performance of qualifying, and was stuck in the 5.50's going into eliminations. Combine that drop in performance with an almost perfect .010 reaction time for Gordon and his FallNationals sojourn came to a sudden end. The points leader, Sean Bellemeur advanced to the semifinals and what could be a very hard fought match with fellow Californina and close friend, Shane Westerfield who is matching strides with everyone but Sipos this weekend.

We'll be paying close attention to the final two rounds of eliminations in Top Alcohol tomorrow and bring you round-by-round updates as they happen. Stay tuned for that!

The latest update as of October 10, 2025

40th annual Texas NHRA FallNationals

There's not enough time this morning to go into much detail about yesterday's first qualifying session for the Top Alcohol cars, but they did run a session at the end of the afternoon, in decent - but not the best - conditions. Low e.t. for the Funny Cars was Jim Whiteley with a very good 5.490 - 264.71. The expected big hitter, Sean Bellemeur, lit the tires early and coasted to an 8-second e.t., but the other big dogs (Brian Hough, Shane Westerfield, Maddi Gordon, and Bob McCosh), all laid down solid 5.50-zone e.t.'s to take the top spots in the 12-car field.

The dragsters seemed stuck in the 5.20's, with the top seven cars in that zone. From there the times fell off to the 6.86 bump spot, as numerous cars had traction problems, either right off the starting line or nearing half track. Leading the pack was Kirk Wolf, with a 5.223 - 276.01 in the Dean Dubbin car. Only 19 of the 20 cars made a pass, but a full contingent is expected for the second session this morning.

10:00 AM Update

Early in the second session of Top Alcohol Funny Car qualifying, Victoria, BC Canada's Stan Sipos laid a bomb on the field with a career best - by a bunch! - 5.398 - 271.62 to take the #1 spot. Yesterday's leader, Jim Whiteley stepped up but could "only" manage a 5.452 - 265.52, but that was only good enough for the #3 spot, as Sean Bellemeur came closest to matching Sipos, carding a 5.412 - 270.87 to grab the second rung on the ladder.

The dragsters saw Jackie Fricke blast out a very quick and fast 5.166 - 283.14 to take the top spot by a fairly large margin. Later in the session, Alan Bradshaw in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada's Doug Doucette's car, almost broke into the teens with an excellent 5.207 - 276.70 to move into the #2 spot. There's still two more pairs of cars to run, but we have to leave for work now so the next update will be tomorrow morning.

The latest update as of October 9, 2025

40th annual Texas NHRA FallNationals

It's always amazing just how fast time passes. From the opening of a grand vision of former Funny Car racer Billy Meyer in 1986 to the rejuvenated Texas Motorplex of today, it's been quite a ride. Lots of momentous accomplishments, incredible performances, and just plain great entertainment have graced the facility over the years. My only visit to the track, in 2014 was quite an experience, from the roving gang of "Elvi" impersonators (plural of Elvis) going up and down the return road on mini-bikes, to the great performances by very large fields of competitors, to the food and drink options at the many concession stands. It was quite a weekend.

Fast forward to this year's event and with the Countdown To The Championship in the Pro categories and the Top Alcohol racers in the stretch run to their respective titles, it's going to be another incredible show at the Motorplex. Qualifying is underway, with the alky cars closing out today's proceedings before things kick into high gear tomorrow with Pro and Pro Sportsman qualifying, plus the Jegs All-Stars competition.

The latest update as of October 7, 2025

Here's the latest Top Alcohol standings as the stretch run continues, with three national and two regional events remaining on the calendar. Note that the XXX indicate that it's not possible for a racer to earn any points at the x'ed out event. A Possible Points total in RED indicates that they have been mathematically eliminated from contention, and individual event points in RED are waived. The abbreviated event names are as follows: DAL (Dallas), LV (Las Vegas) and POM (Pomona).

There was no change at the top of the standings, and only one position change below that, as Joey Severance climbed one spot to #8 when he went to the final round at the St. Louis regional before losing to the "wild card" of the event, former champion Julie Nataas. She was driving one of the three Randy Meyer Racing cars entered and the same trio will be competing this week at the FallNationals. The other RMR drivers, Matt Cummings went out in the semis and McKenna Bold made a first round exit.

Cummings wasn't able to gain any points as he'd used up all his regional event allotment, and Bold missed out on a chance to move up in the standings in her final points claiming regional event. At this point, there's still seven racers still in mathematical contention for the championship, but realistically, only the top three, Shawn Cowie, Matt Cummings, and Jackie Fricke have a chance to wear the 2024 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series crown.

It's a very different picture on the Funny (Car) side of Top Alcohol. All but the top three runners are already out of the picture, and #3 Maddi Gordon is hanging on by a slim thread. She would have to win almost all of her remaining events to have any chance of overtaking Brian Hough or Sean Bellemeuer. After working hard to overtake defending champion Bellemeur, the Hough team saw all their hard work - three wins in their last five races - go for naught when the Killer B's won last week at St. Louis.

The 85 points gained by Bellemeur against a slim four-car field put him back in the lead by 41 points, but Hough does hold one advantage. He has one regional event and three national events left on his schedule, while Bellemeur only has two national events where he could claim points. It's looking very likely that this week's Texas FallNationals could be the deciding event of the season for the championship contenders. An interesting sidenote is that nine of the top ten runners are entered, so despite the short (12-car) field, it will be filled with very competitive racers.

The latest update as of October 6, 2025

At the halfway point of the Countdown to The Championship, the gaps between the contenders and the pretenders continue to grow and while no one in any class is mathematically eliminated from contention, there will certainly be more than a few on the outside by Sunday afternoon when the FallNationals completes.

Even though he's gone to the final round at all three countdown events, and won one of them, Doug Kalitta has still not opened anything like an insurmountable gap over his closest pursuers. When you break down the gap(s) into round wins, then everyone below #3 Justin Ashley has a tall mountain to climb to overtake Kalitta. His teammate, Shawn Langdon (#3) is already a full six rounds behind Kalitta, and with just three races left on the schedule, overcoming that gap has to start this weekend. From there on down the list, anything less than "running the table" won't be enough to have a serious chance to take the championship.

The points battle in Funny Car is much less clear, with Matt Hagan coming on strong due to back-to-back final round appearances that have narrowed Austin Prock's lead to just 20 points - exactly one round win. Prock's JFR teammate Jack Beckman (#3) is only 45 points further behind and well within striking distance. And not that much further back is Ron Capps, currently 125 points out of the lead. Below him are three racers with a slim chance of climbing to the top, but anything less than a final round showing this week will pretty much eliminate them from contention.

In sharp contrast to the Funny Car points chase, the Pro Stock battle is realisticaly down to a two-car race between KB-Titan teammates, Dallas Glenn and Greg Anderson. Defending champion Anderson is only 25 points behind Glenn after winning at St. Louis, and breaking Glenn's two race winning streak. Below them, the 3rd place racer, Matt Hartford is a long way back, 160 points in arrears and if he hadn't gone to the final against Anderson at the MidWest Nationals, would already be almost eliminated from contention. From #4 to the bottomn of the list, no one has any realistic chance of challenging the leaders.

The top three racers in the chase are close enough that it could be a battle right to the end of the countdown. The current leader, Richard Gadson moved ahead of season-long leader, and defending champion, Gaige Herrara, but his lead is only 29 points. Lurking just two dozen points behind Herrara is Matt Smith who uncharacteristcally fell in the first round at St. Louis after notching consecutive final round appearances. Thte #4 and #5 riders, John Hall and Angie Smith respectively, are still in contention, but need late round finishes at Dallas to move back into serious contention. Below them the balance of the field is effectively out of serious consideration.

The latest update as of September 25, 2025

It's a TRIPLE-header weekend of major events

The third of six races in the Countdown to The Championship starts tomorrow morning at Madison, IL's World Wide Technology Raceway. It's the 14th annual NAPA Auto Parts Midwest Nationals. There's full (or almost all full) fields in the four PRO categories and 22 Pro Mods battling for the lead in the Congruity Pro Mod Series penultimate race. The Top Alcohol cars get the weekend off, but all the other Sportsman categories will be running.

Taking place simultaenously, 500 miles east at West Salem, OH's Dragway 42 is the fourth of five IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series events. The track has a long history in the sport, first opening in 1957, and having been sanctioned by numerous associations over the years. Today's Pro-Am was just the start of what promises to be a very entertaining weekend of drag racing. The PRO cars have two qualifying sessions tomorrow, then Saturday afternoon and evening eliminations. The entry lists are collectively the largest in the short history of the series.

The Top Fuel field has 10 entries, Funny Car has 11 entrants, 14 in Mountain Motor Pro Stock, 25 in Pro Mod, and nine in Outlaw Pro Mod. Further down the list it's nine more in Pro Nitrous, six in Top Fuel Harley, and only three Top Alky Dragsters and four alky Funny Cars. In my opinion, if the Top Alcohol racers don't start showing more support for the series, they won't be part of the show much longer. A newly added class, Fuel Altered, has nine entries, all of them experienced racers. That should be quite a show.

Happening a few hundred miles west of Dragway 42, and a few hundred miles north of St. Louis, the third member of our triumvirate of major events is the Funny Car Chaos Championship Finals, at Union Grove, WI's Great Lakes Dragaway. It's a facility that has hosted numerous major events over the 70 years of its existence. It's claim to fame is that it's The Oldest Continuously Operating Dragstrip in the World. It will be the first visit to the track by the FCC crew, and to my mind, it's a rather odd choice as the vast majority of the Chaos racers live much further south. Only one of the top 13 racers in the standings is not entered, so it will be a truly representative championship finals.

Unfortunately, we won't have a photographer at any of the races, as Bob Snyder is resting up until late October when he plans to attend the NHRA West Regional at Phoenix, and the NHRA Nevada Nationals the following weekend. Our Colorado correspondent, Dale Fackler is getting ready for the Fuel Altered Chaos at Tucson Dragway in mid-November. We won't be reorting on much of what's happening this weekend as we're off to Ontario (Canada) on Sunday for a week's "vacation" (visiting relatives).

The latest update as of September 23, 2025

Countdown To The Championship points standings after NHRA 4-Wide Carolina Nationals

There were some significant changes in the standings, including two leader changes: one in Top Fuel and the other in Pro Stock Motorcycle. Now the beat goes on for the third week in a row, as the NAPA Auto Parts NHRA Midwest Nationals starts in 72 hours. Just enough time for the tired teams to get back to their Indianaplois area shops, load up more fuel and spare parts, get the cars prepped, and head to St. Louis. Here's a look at where things stand heading into the midpoint of the Countdown.

Quite a bit of shuffling in the top four, as Tony Stewart and Justin Ashley traded places, with Ashley now #2 after taking the event win, and Stewart now #4 after another second round loss. Holding the top spot after runnerup finishes in the first two countdown events is Doug Kalitta. Following his Reading victory, Shawn Reed dropped an ultra-close (.001 second) race in the first round and fell to #7 in the standings.

The gaps between the top and bottom widened, as #10 (Josh Hart) is now more than 200 points out of the lead, while the closest pursuer to Kalitta is 38 points in arrears. That's nearly two round wins, and the #3 competitor, Shawn Langdon is nearly three rounds behind. It's imperative for some of the racers to have better results this week or their championship hopes for 2025 may be nearly over.

It was a bit of an "penthouse to the outhouse" weekend for the Reading winner, Cruz Pedregon, as he was gone after the opening round, but surprisingly managed to hang on to the #6 spot in the standings. However, he fell 87 more points, to 152 behind the leader, and winner at Charlotte, Austin Prock. Making the biggest move up the ladder was runnerup Matt Hagan, as he jumped from #5 to #2, albeit 79 points - or four round wins - out of the top spot. To show how commanding Prock's lead is, one of the final round runners, Chad Green, is now 213 points behind and has virtually no hope of getting into championship consideration.

It's starting to look like a runaway to the championship for Dallas Glenn, who has taken consecutive victories in the first two events of the countdown. While he's only stretched his lead over teammate Greg Anderson to 79 points, he's put some serious distance on everyone below Anderson in the standings. The next three racers (#3 through #5) are the only competitors less than 200 points behind Glenn. From there to the bottom of the list the numbers stretch out to 353 points behind for #13 Kenny Delco. If Glenn can "triple-up" this week at St. Louis, he'll be starting to mathematically eliminate racers from the countdown at the halfway point.

Pro Stock Motorcycle saw the biggest changeover in the standings, as #4 Richard Gadson, took the Charlotte win and jumped to the top of the standings, displacing Matt Smith. The gap is only eight points, the closest margin in any of the pro categories, but he's now 71 points in front of the two-time defending champion, Gaige Herrara, who now resides in the #4 spot. The bottom four racers in the countdown all lost in the first round at Charlotte and range from 170 to 230 points behind Gadson, as their championship aspirations are fading fast.

With entries closed for the Midwest Nationals, it's good to see full fields in most categories, with only Pro Stock Motorycle having a short (15 riders) field. Pro Stock has the largest field, with 21 entries, while Top Fuel and Funny Car have exactly 16 entrants. While there's no Top Alcohol cars at St. Louis, the Pro Mod turnout is substantial with 22 entries. We will have a brief rundown of the first two days of the event before we leave for a one week trip to Ontario on Sunday.

The latest update as of September 22, 2025

Now the battle(s) really begin!

Following hot on the heels of the NHRA Reading Nationals, the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals saw some substantial changes in the standings in both alcohol categories, and the mathematical elimination of a number of racers from the championship chases. There was also one racer being bumped out of the Top Ten in the Dragster class, with Madison Payne dropping to #11 in the standings, and Jon Bradford moving up one spot to take the #10 position.

The biggest news to come out of Charlotte was Matt Cummings victory moving him into a tie for the points lead with defending champion Shawn Cowie. Howeever, the advantage still goes to Cowie as he has three races remaining to improve his points total, while Cummings is down to his last shot at the Texas FallNationals. A quick look at the "points possible" column shows just how much of an edge the Canadian racer holds over Cummings. With a possible 75 more points to gain than Cummings, it's still Cowie in the proverbial driver's seat to the championship.

Following his win at Reading, and steady string of low 5.20 passes in qualifying, Jamie Noonan appeared poised to make a run for the top of the standings, but it all came undone with a first round loss that ended his hopes. Also dropping out of contention were Melanie Johnson (second round loss), and Angelle Sampey, with a first round exit. It's probably too little, too late for Joey Severance, and he's making a run to move up the standings, but a DNQ at Brainered and skipping Indy pretty much wiped out any chance of going for a fifth World Championship.

With two weeks to go before the entry deadline for Texas, and only 10 names on the pre-entry list to this point, there could be more than the six Top Ten racers entering and continuing the title chase for. One very interesting addition to the entry list is Julie Nataas in a Randy Meyer Racing car. Unless RMR has three cars, that must mean that McKenna Bold is out of the seat (at least temporarily) and out of championship contention. We'll update this story if anything changes.

What a difference two weeks can make. With back-to-back national event victories, Brian Hough has overtaken season-long points leader Sean Bellemeur. Opening the door for Hough were two second round losses, before he grabbed runnerup points at Charlotte. Somewhat similarly to the Cowie - Cummings battle in the dragsters, Hough holds a slight advantage over Bellemeur going into the final six races of the season. That's three national and three regional events, but Bellemeur and the "Killer B's" can only gain national points at Dallas and Las Vegas, while Hough can hit all three races, including Pomona.

The championship may even come down to how each racer does at their final regional race. The obvious choice for Bellemeur would be next week's race at St. Louis, while the Phoenix event in late October might be Hough's logical choice. However.... with the St. Louis regional happening the week before the Dallas FallNationals, and "only" 1600 kms (1050 miles) apart, Hough might opt to duke it out with Bellemeur there instead of waiting until after the FallNationals. A bit of food for thought to be sure.

Four racers were eliminated from contention for the championship at Charlotte, and Phil Esz is teetering on the edge of being out of the chase. With no word on when, or if Annie Whiteley will be back in action following her crash in Virginia, and #9 Shane Westerfield needing to win all six events remaining on the schedule to even have the faintest hope of catching either of the leaders, it's pretty much down to the top three. Sitting in the #3 spot, Madison Gordon suffered consecutive first round losses at Brainerd and Indy to put a major dent in her championship aspirations. Frankly, it would take an incredible stretch run for her to have any chance of overtaking the leaders.

We'll be back tomorrow with the updated standings for the PRO classes, and similar to the Top Alcohol racers, there were changes at the top in two classes, and shuffling of the deck throughout the Top Tens.

The latest update as of September 18, 2025

Let the Countdown to the Championship begin!

It didn't take too long for the standings to see a change, as Tony Stewart dropped from 1st to 2nd following his second round loss (and subsequent crash) to Doug Kalitta, who jumped from 3rd to 1st. Shawn Langdon also lost in the second round and dropped one rung to #3 in the standings. The largest gain was by event winner Shawn Reed, who catapulted from #10 to #5. On the downslide was defending world champion Antron Brown, who slid from #6 to #9 after losing in the opening round.

The gaps between the top three are less than two rounds (one round between #1 and #2), before it drops off to three and four round wins lower down on the list. At the bottom is retiring (at the end of this season) Josh Hart, who is already 132 points behind Kalitta and has a real mountain to climb to get back in the championship chase.

There were no changes at the top of the standings, other than Austin Prock widening his lead slightly, from 20 to 25 points over second place Jack Beckman. The former #3 on the list, Matt Hagan, had an early (first round) exit and dropped from #3 to #5. Another first round loser, Daniel Wilkerson made an even larger move to the bottom, going from #7 to #10 in the process, and now more than 100 points out of first place. The gaps between the leaders and the chasers would have been even larger if Prock and Beckman hadn't lost in the second round of eliminations.

The biggest gainer in the class was event winner Cruz Pedregon, who vaulted from #11 to #6 in the process, closing the gap to the points leader by 53 points. At the bottom of the list, the #12 and #13 runners lost in the first round, and #14 (Buddy Hull), failed to qualify, with replacement driver Alex Laughlin in the seat, and is now more than 200 points out of the lead and quickly heading out of even mathematical contention for the championship.

NOTE: While I've never been a fan of racers outside the Top Ten being allowed to compete in the countdown, and none of them have ever won the world championship, Pedregon has shown that it's very possible to move into contention with a good performance at the first race of the "playoffs". A good run this weekend at Charlotte could move him into the Top Five and become a real threat to the points leader(s).

The latest update as of September 16, 2025

17th annual NHRA Carolina 4-Wide Nationals - ZMax Dragway (Concord, NC)

Let's look at the Top Alcohol situation first, starting with the entry list. There's exactly a full field of dragsters - 16 cars - but Funny Car is down to an 8-car entry list. That's not the lowest total this year, as Seattle had just FIVE car in attendance, and Pomona and Charlotte (spring race) featured just eight entries. At least there's some quality cars entered, with five of the top eight in the standings on the list. The dragsters, by comparison have eight of the Top Ten on the roster.

The Top Ten saw #6, Anthony Troyer overtake #5, McKenna Bold by virtue of his runnerup finish. If you look closely at the graphic, it shows a mistake in the numbering of their positions. Just ignore that and accept my apologies. At the top of the standings, Shawn Cowie increased his lead over Matt Cummings to 43 points, and 66 in front of #3 Jackie Fricke, due to her first round loss. The event winner, Jamie Noonan remained in the #4 slot, but closed the gap to 118 (from 161) points behind Cowie.

At the bottom of the list, dropping down to #10 was Joey Severance as he skipped his second consecutive race, after failing to qualifying at Brainered. And just when I thought the Severance team had parked the car for 2025, his name suddenly showed up on the entry list for the next three races, including this week's event in Charlotte. While his fifth World Championship is probably out of reach, he's certain to move up in the standings, and create some havoc for the other championship contenders. Sta tuned: it's going to get interesting.

The Funny Car standings are definitely tightening up, as the "Killer B's" team, that seemed almost invincible a month ago, following their fifth national event win of the season at Brainered, have suddenly run into some trouble. Back-to-back second round losses at Indy and Reading have allowed their closest pursuer, ?Brian Hough to close the gap to just TEN points heading into this week's event. Also in the mix this week at Charlotte will be #4 Phil Esz and #5 Bob McCosh Jr. who still have an outside chance to overtake Sean Bellemeur if his team runs into more trouble as the season moves into the stretch run.

The bottom half of the Top Ten are realistically too far behind to mount serious challenges to the leaders, and with Annie Whiteley's team still recovering from her crash at the Virginia regional two weeks ago, it's only the top five competitors that have any chance to challenge Bellemeur, Bartone & Boggs for the 2025 World Championship.

Competition Plus Celebrates 26 years of drag racing coverage

It took an article on the front page of Competition Plus today to remind me just how long Bobby Bennett has been on the internet reporting and editorializing about the sport of drag racing. Over the years, a number of other websites have come and gone, like Drag Racing Online and a Canadian website that I used to provide reports and photos for, SpeedZone Magazine but throughout that quarter century (and counting), Comp Plus has been the standard.

However, there is still - amazingly enough - a small website off the west coast of Canada that is still cranking out content on a "regular" basis for 27 years - and counting - from our very first installment of "What's New", posted on January 27, 1998. That's 27 years, 7 months, and 18 days.... and counting. I know we're not remotely in the same league as Competition Plus, but we have been at it continously for nearly two years longer than out much bigger "brother".

Here's the link to Bennett's story today about the first quarter century of his website, and here's the link to the first installment of "What's New" on Northern Thunder.

Congratulations to Bobby Bennett and company, and the memory of a great photographer, and greater human being, Roger Richards, who I had the extreme pleasure of being able to call a friend. May he truly rest in peace.

The latest update as of September 12, 2025

40th annual NHRA Reading Nationals - Maple Grove Raceway (Reading, PA)

Qualifying for the Sportsman categories got underway on Thursday morning and today sees the first two qualifying sessions for the PRO and PRO Sportsman classes. As this report is being written the staging lanes are full of Top Alcohol cars, with 20 dragsters and 11 funny cars waiting to run. Now is a good time to post the latest points standings for those two clases and highlight the changes since the last points update here following the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainered in mid-August.

There was no change in position for the top three in the standings, but Shawn Cowie's lead over Matt Cummings was narrowed to 23 points after Cummings won a regional event at Beech Bend before the U.S. Nationals. That put him in the lead until Cowie won the U.S. Nationals. There was a shakeup in the #4 and #5 spots, as Jamie Noonan made a big move upwards from #8 to #4 following a runnerup at Indy and a win last weekend at the Earlville, IA regional.

Nine of the Top Ten racers are entered for Reading and there should be some serious drama happening there, round by round.

There were no position changes for the Alcohol Funny Cars, and the only points gain was made by Bob McCosh Jr., as he picked up 21 points, but remained in the #6 spot in the standings. With six of the top ten drivers racing at Reading, there should be some movement(s) in the standings by Sunday evening.

The latest update as of September 9, 2025

40th annual NHRA Reading Nationals - Maple Grove Raceway (Reading, PA)

The tire smoke from last week's races has barely dissipated before we're just two days from the first race of the NHRA "Countdown To The Championship(s)". It starts Thursday morning at Maple Grove Raceway under what has been forecast as "mineshaft" atmospheric conditions, and speculation is running high that numerous national records could be set at the event. There's also a welcome weather change regarding the possibility of precipitation: very little chance. While the air and track temps won't be as low as Pomona can get at the season ending World Finals, they will be conducive to the generation of serious horsepower.

While Top Fuel and Pro Bike are one short of full fields, and Top Alcohol Funny Car continues what appears to be a slow march to oblivion with just 11 entries, the other PRO and Semi-Pro categories have overflowing entry lists. All of the Top Ten racers in the PRO classes, nine of the Top Ten in Top Alcohol Dragster and six of the Top Ten in Alcohol Funny Car are entered. There could have been two more Alky Funny Cars on the lists, but crashes by Annie Whiteley, at Virginia Motorsports Park last weekend, and Chris Foster at Beech Bend two weeks ago have put them out of action in the foreseeable future.

And we are still trying to put some words down below the photos from the U.S. Nationals. It will all be done in due time. As always: STAY TUNED!

The latest update as of September 6, 2025

IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series - "Take 3"

The IHRA is back in action right now, with the third of five races on their Outlaw Nitro Series schedule underway at Darana (formerly National Trail) Raceway in Hebron, OH. This time there's full - and overflowing - fields in Top Fuel (13 centries) and Funny Car (12 cars). With just two qualifying sessions today, it's guaranteed to be intense. The biggest names on the TF list are Jasmine Salinas, still knocking off the rust after five months on the sidelines before last week's Indy race, and Shawn Reed. The NHRA report on his return to the driver's seat after his crash at Seattle is that he's racing "this weekend at a non-points race in Ohio".

There was no mention of IHRA as is the custom at NHRA, but at least they acknowledged he was racing somewhere instead of completely ignoring his return. There was also no mention made of Salinas competing, or any of the other part-time NHRA competitors, such as Scott Palmer, Krista Baldwin, Lex Joon, Todd Paton, and Cameron Ferre. And absolutely no mention of Larry "Two Seater" Dixon who still appears to not be welcome driving at an NHRA race.

One shocker was the addition of Bernie Plourd, former Top Alcohol Dragster standout in the Northwest, entered in Top Fuel. Through the super sleuthing talents of good friend Larry Pfister we were able to capture a photo just posted on Facebook. There's a lot of questions about his entry, but suffice to say, the car looks serious and if he's got some good tuning help, things could happen. However, with only TWO qualifying sessions today, unless he's done some serious testing, he could be in deep with the other dozen racers.

(LEFT) Here's Bernie Plourd's new Top Fuel car in the pits at Darana Raceway, Hebron, OH. We did a little research and found that Bernie bought Terry Haddock's Top Fuel operation, allowing Terry to focus on his two Funny Cars. When questioned about the purchase, Plourd allegedly replyed "I hate money!".

(RIGHT) The car made it out for the first qualifying session, and it was reported by the announcers that it was his first pass ever in a Top Fuel car. They also said that IHRA had agreed to allow Plourd to make the two passes necessary to upgrade his license to Top Fuel during qualifying. His first effort didn't start well, as the car jumped up on the tires, Plourd pedalled, then it jumped up again before he shut off and coasted to a 7.428 at 92.42 mph. He didn't appear for the second session and we were unable to find out why.

That's all we have time for this morning. Check back this evening for a number of updates on the action at Hebron, and the two NHRA regional events at Virginia Motorsports Park and Tr-State Raceway (Earlville, IA).

The latest update as of September 3, 2025

Let the COUNTDOWN(s) to the Championship(s) BEGIN!

Now that the "regular" season is over it's time to start the real chase to the World Championships. Until it was announced that the points leaders in the PRO categories were being awarded some substantial bonus money at the conclusion of the U.S. Nationals, there was no mention of anything like that happening. The amounts were $150,000 each for Top Fuel and Funny Car, $55,000 for Pro Stock and $15,000 for Pro Stock Motorcycle. Healthy payouts but they were a complete surprise to almost everyone beforehand. With much larger awards at the end of the Countdown, the race for the bigger bucks begins next week at Maple Grove Raceway's 40th annual NHRA Nationals.

The leader in Top Fuel, Tony Stewart, has come a long way in just two seasons in the class after taking the seat vacated by his wife, Leah Pruett. After the Too Fast, Too Tasty bonus points were added in, he's less than one round win ahead of his closest pursuer, Doug Kalitta. The gap between the top and bottom widens to a 113-point margin for the #10 racer, Shawn Reed. With fewer full-time competitors in the class this year, there's only ten racers in the countdown, as compared to twelve last year.

Funny Car is lead once again by Austin Prock, closely followed by teammate Jack Beckman. The distance between them is exactly one round win, and #3 Matt Hagan, is only a few points behind. Bob Tasca III has fallen from #2 at the start of last year's countdown to #10 this year and starts more than 100 (113 to be exact) points behind Prock. This year there's 14 racers in the hunt, bolstered by the full-time status of the Jim Head team, with Canadian rookie Spencer Hyde driving. The last four competitors in the field are well behind the pack with #14 M=Buddy Hull already 153 points behind the leader.

We'll be back tomorrow with the updated Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car points standings following the U.S. Nationals. This week there's two regional events, one at Virginia Motorsport Park (Petersburg, VA) and one at Tri-State Raceway Park (Earlville, IA). With just three regional and five national events remaining on the schedule after this week, the pressure is on for racers hoping to move into a contending position for the Top Alcohol championships.

There's a lot of work to be done on the captions and reports for our U.S. Nationals coverage and it's going to take most of the week to get them posted. Stay tuned and keep checking back for updates each day.

The latest update as of September 2, 2025

We're kicking off our coverage of Monday's eliminations with the "Kings of The Sport"... the TOP FUEL Dragsters, first up after the national anthem.

TOP FUEL Eliminations - Round ONE

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FUNNY CAR Eliminations - Round ONE

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PRO MOD Eliminations Round TWO

TOP FUEL Eliminations - Round TWO

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FUNNY CAR Eliminations - Round TWO

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TOP FUEL Eliminations - Round THREE

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TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER Eliminations - FINAL Round

PRO STOCK Eliminations - FINAL Round

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FUNNY CAR Eliminations - FINAL Round

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TOP FUEL Eliminations - FINAL Round

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The latest update as of September 1, 2025

It's the fuel cars leading off Sunday's show as they entered their fourth and fifth (final) qualifying sessions. With only 17 cars entered in Top Fuel, there wasn't much drama surrounding them, but the bottom quarter of the 19 Funny Cars was shaping up to be quite a battle for the last few qualifying positions.

TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #4

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #4

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #5 (FINAL)

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NOSTALGIA FUNNY CAR - Eliminations Round ONE

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TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #5 (FINAL)

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NOSTALGIA FUNNY CAR - Eliminations Round TWO

The latest update as of August 31, 2025

Our coverage of Saturday's action at the "BIG GO!" starts with the second qualifying session for the wild and wonderful PRO MODs. We'll fill in the rest of the categories as soon as we can.

PRO MOD - Qualifying Session #2

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TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #2

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #2

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NOSTALGIA FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #2

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TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #3

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #3

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The latest update as of August 30, 2025

Sox & Martin HEMI Challenge

We start our U.S. Nationals coverage with the first round of eliminations of the ultra-popular Sox & Martin HEMI Challenge. After a few hiccups during qualifying, everything was sorted out between the racers and the tech inspectors, and the 16 qualifiers were ready to fight for the prestigious crown in what promised to be a very tough battle.

(LEFT) The #15 qualifier, Jim Pancake, was in one of the four Dodge Darts in the field. He left with the wheels up but was in trouble shortly after launching and slowed to a losing 12-second time.

(RIGHT) Competing in the psychedelic painted "Psycho Kuda" was West Virginia's Bucky Hess. He qualified near the top of the field with a very quick 8.344 - 157.36, and improved on those numbers with a winning 8.317 - 157.83 to advance to the quarterfinals.

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TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #1

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TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Session #1

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PRO MOD - Qualifying Session #2

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #2

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TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Session #2

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #1

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TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #1

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That's all for now; more coming soon!

The latest update as of August 27, 2025

Photo courtesty of Competition Plus

I was rather (to put it mildly) shocked when I opened up Competition Plus yesterday and found this image dominating the front page. Click on the photo to read Bobby Bennett's latest editorial about just what would happened if NHRA didn't exist. Love them or hate them or probably somewhere in between those two extremes, everyone should ponder just how different drag racing would be without the National Hot Rod Association.

And on that "happy" note, the 70th annual Cornwell Quality NHRA U.S. Nationals is underway at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, with sunny skies and overflowing pit areas.

The latest update as of August 25, 2025

Smoke, Fire & Thunder - Mission Raceway Park - Mission, BC

There was lots of racing happening over the past few days, with two NHRA Regional events, a Hot Rod Heritage Series race, and one of the most successful events in the long and storied history of Mission Raceway Park, the "Smoke, Fire & Thunder" show. While it wasn't a points race, the variety of cars, from the Jet Funny Car to the Outlaw Pro Mods, and a host of other fast classes made for four days of spectacular entertainment.

Our good friend and absolutely ace photographer, Larry Pfister was on hand from start to finish, capturing loads of great photos and will start posting more than the few teasers he's put on his FB page so far. Check out his Facebook page as he works on the literally thousands of images he capture over the weekend.

And if you want to see the whole event on video, from start to finish, check out the YouTube videos provided by Mission Raceway's media guru Bo Rouck. He's not only brought live timing of the MRP races to the internet, he's putting the videos up too with the assistance of Lordco Auto Parts. It's available at MRP Lordco TV on YouTube. Great work and well worth watching.

Thursday Test 'n Tune
Friday qualifying
Saturday eliminations - Part 1
Saturday eliminations - Part 2

Nostalgia Summer Nationals - Woodburn Dragstrip - Woodburn OR

The NHRA Hot Rod Heritage series continued it's march towards the season ending California Hot Rod Reunion, with Woodburn Dragstrip's Nostalgia Summer Nationals. The twelve competitors were whittled down a very strong 8-car field that ranged from Nathan Sitko's 5.659 - 251.86 at the top to fellow Edmontonian Tim Boychuk on the bump spot at a very good 5.720 - 246.80. On the outside were Kris Krabill in the "Bartone Bros" Mustang with a strong 5.782 - 249.86, followed by Jerry Espeseth in the 5.80's and Derrick Moreira in the 5.90's.

Conditions were intimading during qualifying, with a high of 107 (F) air temp in the afternoon, and it wasn't much cooler during Saturday's eliminations. But the racers adapted and put on a great show during eliminations. The first round saw the slowest winning e.t. being the 5.721 - 233.24 that Nathan Sitko carded as he took out Tim Boychuk's solid effort of 5.876 - 241.45 in the final pairing. The round began with Shane Westerfield, in the Austin & O'Brien "Bardahl" Camaro bombing the timers with low e.t. and top speed of the meet at 5.564 - 263.72 as his opponent, Mike Peck Sr. shook the tires hard and coasted to a 14-second clocking.

The next two pairs down the track featured winning times in the 5.60's as Jeff Arend dispatched Cory Lee in a close 5.675 - 259.21 to 5.743 - 158.17 battle, before Geoff Monise laid down a 5.682 - 253.85 to easily cover Drew Austin's losing 5.813 - 249.53 in the "Pro Max" 'Mustang.

The semifinals matched up the low qualifier and low e.t. of the meet, and Westerfield kept the beat going as he pounded out another excellent pass of 5.580 - 263.20 to overcome the slight starting line advantage of Sitko, who trailed at the finish line with a losing 5.700 - 248.89. The other semifinal went to Jeff Arend with a consistent 5.689 - 257.53 over Monise's tire smoking 16-second time.

The final round pitted the solid 5.60 running Jeff Arend against the quicker 5.50 car of Shane Westerfield. Arend left first by two hundredths, but Westerfield made up the difference by the 330' mark, stopping the timers with a very good 5.608 = 262.63 that gave him a winning margin of one car length at the finish line, as Arend kept it close with another 5.6 effort, this time clocking in at 5.661 - 256.31 in the losing cause. With the win, Westerfield clinched the 2025 Hot Rod Heritage Series Funny Car championship, with an insurmountable lead of 195 points over second place Nathan Sitko.

The A/Fuel class backed up the Nostalgia Funny Cars, and despite a rather short (three cars) field the low 6-second and 230+ mph runs were good value. A surprise entrant was Sean Bellemeur (you may have heard of him driving the "Pirate Ship" TA/FC of Tony Bartone) in his family's blown alky '23-T altered. Unfortunately, he lost in the first round to Kin Bates Sr. who went on to runner-up behind Wayne Ramay.

BONUS: We've received permission from longtime Woodburn Dragstrip photographer George Adams to incorporate a number of his photos into a Feature page on the event. We'll start working on it tomorrow.

East Region event at New England Dragway - Epping, NH

Going into the weekend, there were only seven regional events left on the calendar, and now they're down to five. And the week after the U.S. Nationals will see that number shrink to only three more chances for the Top Alcohol racers to gather their regional points. The East region had a full field, plus an alternate in Top Alcohol Dragster, led by Jackie Fricke with a 5.264 - 279.38 in qualifying. The field was very tight after Fricke's dominating pass, with #2 Tom Fox Jr. sitting at 5.388 and the rest of the field down to #8 Brett Winward on the bump at 5.484.

Eliminations got off to a strange start with two of the qualifiers and the alternate not appearing, giving Fricke a bye run in the semifinal before meeting Fox in what became a very close final round. Fox got the lead off the line (.040 to .066 r.t.'s) and held it until past the 1000' mark before Fricke turned on the winlight by half a car length. The final numbers were 5.285 - 278.52 for Fricke, and 5.331 - 270.86 for Fox. Fricke gained 21 points with the win, not moving her up from #3 in the standings, but closing the gap on Shawn Cowie, and keeping pace with Matt Cummings.

The Funny Car field couldn't get much slimmer as just two racers entered: national contender Bob McCosh Jr. and Canadian rookie Jeff McCulloch. In a shocking development, McCosh smoked the tires in their "final" (only) round, while McCulloch made his best run of the weekend with a 6.014 - 235.39 for his first win at an NHRA event. McCosh's loss meant that he didn't gain anything in the points department, as he needed the win to overtake Annie Whiteley for the #5 spot in the standings.

North Central Region event at Beech Bend Raceway Park - Bowling Green, KY

Competitor numbers were pretty thin at Beech Bend, with just FOUR dragsters and THREE funny cars in the pits. The funny car numbers took a hit when Chris Foster got loose nearing half track on a qualifying pass, shot across his lane and hit the wall on an angle, then riccocheted across to the far wall before coming to a stop deep in the shutdown area. While he was able to exit the badly damaged car on his own, it's doubtful that he'll back in action any time soon.

Eliminations for the Funny Cars was short, with just one round for the two cars left in competition. Heavily favoured Chip Beverett took the win with a convincing 5.561 - 261.42 when opponent Tony Bogolo smoked the tires instantly and slowly coasted across the finish line with a 22-second timeslip. The win increased Beverett's points total by 53, elevating him from #9 to #7 in the standings.

The dragster field saw a rookie Zachary Fulcher, in his first competition event score a runnerup finish when fellow rookie Melanie Johnson smoked the tires in the first round. On the other side of the ladder, Matt Cummings took our Jared Dreher in a race that was close to half track before Cummings' big Randy Meyer horsepower took over and lit up the scoreboards with low e.t. of the meet at 5.194 - 277.60 to easily cover Dreher's game 5.353 - 270.05 effort. The final round wasn't a walkover for Cummings as he had to make up a small starting line deficit (.050 to .089 r.t.'s). He did so by half track and stopped the clocks with a very good 5.254 - 276.18 pass.

The win gave Cummings the points lead in Top Alcohol Dragster, but just nine points in front of Shawn Cowie, and 21 points ahead of Jackie Fricke. With all three racers entered in this week's U.S. Nationals, it's starting to look like showdown time already. The racers in the #4 (Anthony Troyer) and #5 (McKenna Bold) spots are 138 and 159 points behind the leader, and need a big surge in the next few weeks to have any hope of catching the front runners. Below them are Joey Severance who is not entered at Indy, and below him are racers more than 200 points out of the lead. However, everyone in the Top Ten, excluding Severance are entered for Indy and it could be very interesting and intense during eliminations.

Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals - Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park - Indianapolis, IN

In case you're wondering, YES we have a photographer attending the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals. Our Colorado correspondent, Dale Fackler is enroute to Indianapolis as this is being written. He should be at the track in time for the late Wednsday afternoon Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge qualifying session, and if not, will certainly be shooting the final Hemi Challenge on Thursday. Then it's four days of mainly nitro and alky racing, culminating with the finals on Monday, Labour Day. We hope to start our coverage by Friday and will probably be updating for a solid week after the race. Stay tuned for all of that!

The latest update as of August 21, 2025

But Wait! There's more!

We reported that there is two NHRA Regional events happening this weekend at Epping, NH and Bowling Green, KY, but there's two other rather important races taking place out west. First up is the Nostlagia Summer Nationals at Woodburn Dragstrip (Woodburn, OR) with Nitro Nostalgia Funny Cars competing in the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series. Following the ultra-successful Nightfire Nationals three weeks ago, it's the last event for the nitro floppers before the season ending California Hot Rod Reunion at Famoso Dragstrip (Bakersfield, CA) in late October.

Closer to home is the annual late August major event at Mission Raceway Park (Mission, BC), the Smoke, Fire & Thunder race, with everything from Jet Funny Cars, to blown alcohol Funny Cars, Outlaw Pro Mods, and a host of other entertaining categories. It's four days of automotive mayhem at the quickest track outside of a national event facility. We'd like to be there but our good friend Larry Pfister is already onsite and will be posting heaps of his spectacular photos over the next few days.

The latest update as of August 19, 2025

TOP ALCOHOL Dragster and Funny Car Points Standings

It's that time of year again when the alky racers start seriously looking at their points totals, and doing the calculations to see if they have a chance to take the World Championship trophy at the end of the NHRA season. There's only 13 events left on the calendar: 7 regional and 6 national for the racers to gain points towards that lofty goal. At this time, last year's champions, Shawn Cowie and Sean Bellemeur are at the top of their respective categories and both are in a good position to repeat as NHRA champions, Shawn for the second time and Sean for the fifth time.

With racers able to count their best seven (of ten) national events and best three (of five) regional races, it's virtually mandatory for the championship contenders to attend the maxiumum ten and five events, unless they win every event they enter and amass a "perfect" point total of 850, the maximum possible points. The two spreadsheets below show their national, regional and total points earned to date. Additionally, upcoming national events entered are noted and any points in RED have been waived, and not part of the racers' totals.

While Shawn Cowie is in the lead, he's being closely pursued by Matt Cummings and Jackie Fricke, both just 33 points behind him. Cowie and Fricke have been used up all their regional events, while Cummings has one more event to gain points. On the national side, Cowie has run one less race than either Cummings and Fricke. Lurking not too far behind in the #4 spot, rookie Anthony Troyer, who won the Winternationals and last weekend's Lucas Oil Nationals, is 129 points in arrears of Cowie, but has two more chances to improve his regional totals.

Below Troyer, another rookie, McKenna Bold (#5) and Joey Severance (#6) are still in the hunt, but 150 and 159 points out of top spot and they need to run every national event for the balance of the season to have any chance of overtaking the leader(s). Below Severance, the last four racers in the Top Ten are all roughly 200 points behind and need a string of victories to have a serious shot at the title.

The Funny Car standings are even more spread out, with three racers at the top of the list, all within 64 or fewer points of first place, while the next three racers in the standings are between 130 and 170 points behind. Below them, the #7 racer, Chris Foster is already 225 points behind top dog Sean Bellemeur and quickly falling out of contention after a first round exit at Brainerd.

It's looking very much like Bellemeur and the "Killer B's" will repeat as champions, with four national event wins in five races, while #2 Maddi Gordon has two wins in six appearances. She was leading Bellemeur in the standings before a first round loss at Brainerd saw her drop 44 points behind. A second round loss cost the #3 Brian Hough a chance to move up the ladder one spot and leaves him 64 behind Bellemeur. Two racers that could make an impact are Phil Esz and Bob McCosh who have only competed at three national events and could close the gap on the leaders by entering all of the remaining events on the schedule.

We will update the Top Alcohol "scorecard" after this coming week's regional events at New England Dragway (Epping, NH) and Beech Bend Raceway Park (Bowling Green, KY). At the completion of next week's U.S. Nationals, we'll update these scorecards and post the first Countdown to the Championship for the PRO racers after their point totals are reset following Indy. Stay tuned for that update!

The latest update as of August 16, 2025

Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals - Brainered, MN

The first day of PRO and semi-pro qualifying went well, with no weather interruptions, but performances were mostly only moderately successful. After qualifying concluded for the day, the rain started and continued until this morning. NHRA did get the track prepped, and with the density altitude down from 3500+ ft to nearly 2000' the final Top Alcohol Dragster qualifying session saw almost everyone improve. The final pair of the session saw both drivers (Matt Cummings and Jackie Fricke drop into the 5-teens, with speeds over 275 mph. Due to the time lost from the rain, the final alky Funny Car session was cancelled, as all 13 racers were qualified in a tight grouping. On top, with a .5.532 was Shane Westerfield, while #13 was national event rookie Jesse Clark with a solid 5.698 e.t.

After the alky dragsters finished their session, Top Fuel took center stage and the performances really ramped up. Brittany Force nearly blew up the scoreboard with an awesome 3.697 - 340.82 pass that looked like a lock for the #1 qualifying spot. But she was upstaged by Doug Kalitta, running in the final pair of the session, who clocked in at an even better e.t. at 3.655 - 339.36 to take the top rung on the ladder.

Byron Dragway Summer Thunder - Byron, IL

It's been a really tough year for Funny Car Chaos, with almost every event suffering from bad weather. It started with the season opener at the Texas Motorplex, which was postponed for an entire month before getting underway at the beginning of May. It didn't go off without a few rainy interruptions, but it was successfully completed. The second event on the calendar, the Tulsa Nitro Nationals, was postponed for two months before being cancelled entirely when another dire forecast threatened to wash away the race.

Finally, in a case of third time lucky, the Eddyville Raceway "Chaos in The Cornfield" was completed on time and everything appeared to get back to normal. That only lasted until the next race, the "Summer Thunder" event at Byron Dragway started. Qualifying on Friday went off without a problem, but rain on Saturday morning delayed the start of the program. The precipitation held off again until just before the final rounds, which were washed out. The finalists will race for the event titles at either Smokin' Mo-Kan Dragway on Labor Day, or the at Great Lakes Drag-O-Way (Union Grove, WI) in late September. That's weather permitting of course!

Rocky Mountain Nationals - Edmonton, AB

We know that the event was completed a month ago, but things move slowly around here at times. The Rocky Mountain Nationals, which has metamorphosed from an IHRA national event, to an IHRA Nitro Jam race, to an NHRA National Open, and now to an NHRA Heritage Series event for the Nitro Nostalgia Funny Cars, ran in mid-July. While we weren't in attendance, an old (well, she's not that old) Sheryl Ogonoski (daughter of George Sitko, sister of Ken Sitko, aunt of Nathan Sitko) very kindly agreed to Northern Thunder posting her photos in our coverage of the event.

So where are the photos and the captions and the story to go with them? They're in a few folders in my desktop computer, the results are written in a notebook and we're still looking for the time to get them out into cyberspace. Maybe later today we'll get started, but most likely early next week. That's one of the drawbacks of summer, there's just too much good weather to enjoy outside, too many social obligations, which included a 75th birthday two weeks ago to use up all the available time in each day. But we will get to it as soon as we can, while we continue to work on the Nightfire Nationals coverage, again courtesy of an old (and he really is old) friend, Larry Pfister.

The latest update as of August 12, 2025

54th annual Nightfire Nationals - Boise, ID

One of the longest running independent drag races anywhere, and one of the most popular events in the Pacific Northwest, the Nightfire Nationals was held over the weekend at Firebird Raceway. With a large field of Nitro Nostalgia Funny Cars, 15 in all, six Top Fuel Dragsters, and seven AA/Fuel Altereds (aka: Awful Awfuls), 11 Pro Mods, and a host of supporting categories it was another barnburner of a race.

We're privileged to be able to share some of the photos that our good friend, and super photographer Larry Pfister took at the event. We're incorporating them into our report on the race with details provided by the Firebird Raceway team. Thanks to all who helped make this feature report possible. Since we didn't attend the event in person, and have no data on when the photos were taken (ie. Q-1 or E-2, etc) we'll use the shots that best fit the chronological order of the event.

Funny Car had an almost full field that featured 12 cars in the 5-second zone. They ranged from low e.t.'er Tim Boychuk at an awesome 5.619 - 255.00, to #12 qualifier Todd Miller at 5.912 - 240.59. The majority of the field were in the 5.70's which guaranteed that some very close racing would be on tap throughout eliminations.

AA/FUNNY CAR - Eliminations Round ONE

(LEFT) Leading off eliminations were the Bill Windham '70 Trans-Am "Shakedown" (right lane) facing the "Instigator" '70 Camaro of Washington state's Michael Peck Sr. in the left lane. Windham reacted a little quicker but fell off the pace early and could only ring up a 6.222 - 232.27 in a losing effort.

(RIGHT) Running strong all the way to the finish line, Peck ran fractionally quicker than his #3 qualifying 5.738, with a very good 5.736 - 252.95 lighting up the scoreboard.

Qualifying at the top of the 15-car field, Edmonton's Tim Boychuk in his "Happy Hour" '70 Dodge Challenger (not the '69 Camaro that was listed on the results sheets) earned a bye run in the first round. He ran strong until just past half track before clicking it off to a 6.161 - 174.53 result.

If it wasn't the holeshot of the millenium it must have been pretty close, as you can see from this shot about 330' out from the starting line. Streaking away in the far lane is Shane Harter in Dave Benjamin's "Nasty Benjamin" '78 Firebird. Trailing badly in the near lane is Jerry Espeseth in the '73 Camaro-bodied "Atlas Oil Tool Special". Espeseth got closer near the finish line but Jerry's .447 reaction time dug a hole too deep for a very good 5.821 - 247.07 pass to overcome. Taking the win was Harter with his best of the weekend 6.021 - 237.55 effort. The loss pretty much ended Espeseth's hopes of catching Shane Westerfield in the points standings.

(LEFT) In the first round of eliminations it was Todd Plate (near lane), in Eddie Knox's "Problem Child" '69 Camaro, facing itinerant FC racer Jon Capps in Cecil Matthew's "Matthews Motorsports" '70 Camaro entry.

(RIGHT) On the green, Capps took a five hundredths lead and pounded out another 5.7 run, this time stopping the clocks with a 5.768 - 244.65. Plate faded early and shut off to a losing 6.400 at 159.46 mph.

(LEFT) It's a little deceiving to see such a large gap between Drew Austin in the far lane and Todd Miller in the near lane at this point. Austin did leave first, with an .055 to .132 reaction time advantage, but it looks much greater at this point.

(RIGHT) As they passed the 330' mark, the distance between the "California Hustler" '79 Trans-Am of Miller and the "Pro-Max" '79 Mustang of Austin seems even greater. Austin did take a convincing win with the quickest e.t. of the round to this point, stopping the clocks with a 5.724 - 249.30 to take out Miller's second best 5.939 - 243.98 effort.

(LEFT) Coming out of the #6 qualifying position with a strong 5.753 e.t., Kris Krabill (near lane) in the Tony Bartone owned "Bartone & Lebor" '79 Mustang had the advantage over Bobby Cottrell in the "Speed Sport" '70 Camaro.

(RIGHT) Cottrell launched first with a small (.033) advantage, then stretched it out with a good 5.945 - 241.58 to turn on the winlight. Krabill stayed close until half track before lifting and coasting across the stripe with a losing 7.300 - 126.16 timeslip.

(LEFT) The "Quarter Pounder" team of Van Gundy, Clark & Monise, with Geoff Monise at the tiller of the '70 Firebird, qualified mid=pack in the #7 spot with a very good 5.766 - 246.12 timeslip. He picked up the pace substantially in eliminations with an excellent 5.649 - 255.39 pass, that wasn't quite good enough to turn on the winlight though.

(RIGHT) Taking the win was the #10 qualifier, Shane Westerfield in the Austin & O'Brien '69 Camaro-bodied "Northwest Hitter". He launched quicker than Monise (.094 to .125), and ran just a little quicker with low e.t. of the round, at 5.635 - 258.52. The 258+ mph was also top speed of the meet. The side-by-side low 5.60's and big mph's had to be the best pairing of the round by far.

(LEFT) The round closed with the two most closely matched cars in the field, the #8 and #9 qualifiers. Occupying the ninth spot on the ladder was Derrick Moreira and his "Hawaiian Nitro Junkies" team with their (you guessed it, didn't you? '69 Camaro. Unfortunately, they fell off their 5.70 pace of qualifying and slowed to a 5.959 - 223.54 that wasn't nearly enough to get past their opponent.

(RIGHT) After a tough weekend at their home track in the previous Heritage Series event, the "Pacemaker - Bubble Up" was out for "revenge" at Firebird Raceway. With Nathan Sitko driving, they ran 5.80 and 5.79 in qualifying, then stepped up to a 5.710 - 244.29 to take the win over Moreira and advance to a quarter-final matchup with fellow Edmontonian Tim Boychuk in the next round.

The latest update as of August 11, 2025

9:28 PM (EDT) UPDATE

Shortly after posting the news about the 2026 IHRA schedule, this retraction appeared on the IHRA website.

Earlier this morning, a post was made regarding our 2026 schedule. Unfortunately, due to an internal error, a working draft was mistakenly published by a member of our team. We sincerely apologize for any confusion this may have caused. We are actively working to correct the issue and will share more of the finalized information as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience, understanding, and continued support of the IHRA.

Thank you

Josh Peake - President of IHRA
Darryl Cuttell - CEO of IHRA

IHRA Happenings

Last weekend's Outlaw Pro Mod event at Darana Dragway (Milan, MI) featured the largest winner's purse ever, with $125,000 going to Randy Weatherford. He qualified at the top of the 31-car field with a very quick 3.607 - 210.67, earning himself a first round bye. From there he steadily mowed down opponents until the final, where he pulled out low e.t. of the meet, at to take a narrow win over Kallee Mills, who only trailed by a few thousandths with a great effort.

Then, 36 hours later, another BIG announcement came from IHRA headquarters, as dates for the 2026 schedule were posted on the association's website. The 10 dates listed made no mention of the venues or the status, ie. Outlaw Nitro, Outlaw Pro Mod, or Pro-Am, of each race. IHRA owner, Darryl Cuttell, stated that more information would be posted throughout the next few months.

But wait... there's more: late this afternoon it was announced that Scott Woodruff has been hired to oversee event development and the direction of the sanctioning body as it moves forward. Woodruff has decades of experience in drag racing management and this move from Elite Motorsports to the IHRA represents the culmination of his lifelong goal. Read all about the latest moves on Competition Plus.

The latest update as of August 9, 2025

Division SIX Domination!

Both of the Top Alcohol categories at Seattle's (Kent) Pacific Raceways were won by Division Six stalwarts. Defending Top Alcohol Dragster World Champion Shawn Cowie took out the Eastern Invader, Jackie Fricke in the final round of eliminations this afternoon. After a couple of less-than-perfect earlier victories over tire smoking and/or shaking opponents, Cowie got back on the tuneup with a great 5.236 - 278.00 to run away from Fricke's shut-off 20-second pass. Cowie's win opened up a sizeable gap in the points standings, as he now is 44 points ahead of #2 in the standings, Matt Cummings, and 86 in front of #3, Jackie Fricke.

In the Top Alcohol Funny Car category, Brian Hough took out the Division Seven challenger Bret Williamson in the final of the three-car field. The win moved him to within 21 points of defending World Champion Sean Bellemeur, who was idle this weekend. The points leader, Madison Gordon is only 31 points ahead of Hough now, but she has an extra chance (one more event to claim points at than Hough) to move further in front of her challengers.

Over in the midwest, a Division Six "invader", Joey Severance, took the win in Top Alcohol Dragster over a tough field of national contenders. After two seasons of struggles, highlighted by his 11th place finish in the 2024 standings, the "J&A Services" team seems to be back where they need to be, running in the 5-teens again on a regular basis. The Brainerd win, following his victory at the Northwest Nationals has vaulted Joey to #5 in the standings, and if he can make it a "three-peat" at this week's Lucas Oil Nationals, he could be in serious contention for another World Championship.

On the Top Alcohol Funny Car side of the pits, it's currently a three-way battle between defending champion Sean Bellemeur, sophomore Madison Gordon, and perennial contender, Brian Hough. However, with only a few hours to go before the entry deadline, seven of the top eight runners in the class are entered for this weekend's national event. Depending on how things shake out at Brainerd, there could be a closer race to the championship, or the leader(s) could put more distance between themselves and the challengers. Even though there's not a full field entered, the 13 drivers on the list are a healthy rebound from the dismall numbers at most national events this season, and the most at an event since the fall Las Vegas last year. And if you're wondering when there was a full field, it was the previous event at the Texas FallNationals last October.

Switching back to the dragsters, as of a few minutes ago there were 19 entries for the Lucas Oil Nationals, including nine of the Top Ten drivers. That field has five blown alky entries facing 14 of the injected nitro variety, promising some very interesting matchups. While Cowie has a decent lead in the standings, an early round loss for him, coupled with a late round finish for some of his challengers could make some serious changes in the standings by Sunday evening. Stay tuned for daily updates as the event progresses.

The latest update as of August 8, 2025

Double DoubleHeader weekend

There's lots of drag racing place this weekend, starting with a very small, but important event at Port Alberni, BC. It's been six long years since the last edition of "Thunder In The Valley" has taken place at the Port Alberni Airport on Vancouver Island. This time around it's being held on a 16-th mile defunct sawmill until a permanent arrangement can be made. While we won't be attending, we're hoping that one of our V.I. photographers, such as Dyan Lover, will be on hand to capture some of the action.

Further afield, there is a Divison Six - West Region event underway at Pacific Raceways (Kent, WA). And much further afield, a Division Five - Central Region race in progress at Brainered International Raceway (Brainerd, MN). There's quite a few of the Top Ten runners in Top Alcohol Dragster attending the two races. Two at Pacific Raceways: Shawn Cowie and Jackie Fricke), and three at Brainerd: Joey Severance, McKenna Bold, and Jamie Noonan. Taking it a little further, there's eight of the top 14 racing this weekend, with #11 Madison Payne at Brainerd, and #13 Mike Austin and #14 Casey Grisel at Kent.

We wish we could report that there's a similar turnout of Top Alcohol Funny Cars, but it's another dismal weekend, participation-wise for the short wheelbase cars. Only six are at Brainerd, and sadly, just three at Pacific Raceways. While the number of competitors may be lacking, there are five of the Top Ten in competition, and seven of the Top 15 racing. So the fields may be small but the racing should be very competitive.

Qualifying at both events finished earlier this evening, and eliminations are set to begin at noon tomorrow (Saturday). We'll have an update tomorrow evening, and a full report on Sunday.

And in case you hadn't noticed, the IHRA has a $125,000 winner's purse on offer at Milan, MI's Darana Dragway this weekend. Qualifying concluded earlier this evening, and the 32-car (actually "only" 31) field ranges from top qualifying Randy Weatherford at 3.607 - 210.67, with the next 15 cars in the 3.60's, then the next ten cars in the 3.70s', and only three cars slower than 3.86 on the 1/8-th mile track. It's guaranteed to be quite an eliminations show tomorrow, and if you can't be there, it's being broadcast on IHRA.com with serious professional production values. Don't miss it if you're a doorslammer fan.

The latest update as of August 6, 2025

The following paragraphs are part of a larger story that looks at the current state of racing in the PRO classes, and where things are headed as the 2025 season nears the end of the "regular" season and moves into the Countdown to The Championship phase of racing. We'll get back to working on it after the Divisional - Regional races taking place this weekend are over. Stay tuned!

TOP FUEL

It's been a tough year for the quickest cars in drag racing, as the car counts at national events have steadily fallen throughout the season. Only four of the first 12 events on the schedule have seen full fields, and only a single alternate at each of them. With the dismal turnout of 11 cars at Seattle and only 10 at Sonoma, the average number of entries has fallen to 14.6 per race. And the trend is continuing, with only 14 cars on the roster for Brainerd and Indy, and an average of just 12 cars for the six countdown races. While there ie still time for the pre-entris to increase, it's not looking good for the class in general.

The U.S. Nationals field has received a boost with the long-delayed season debut of eight-time world champion Tony Schumacher, in a Rick Ware Racing team car, and the return (for at least one race) of Scrappers Racing driver Jasmine Salinas. By the time Labor Day rolls around, we expect the Indy field to be filled, but after that, full fields throughout the Countdown could be few and far between. Through the first ten events of the season, up to Norwalk, all of the current Top Ten drivers competed, but only three races, Gainesville, Charlotte and Norwalk had full fields.

Then the numbers took a real dive when the "Western Swing" began, with only 11 cars at Seattle, and following Shawn Reed's crash at Pacific Raceways, just 10 cars competed at Sonoma. With the entry deadline for the Lucas Oil Nationals today, there are 14 cars entered, with Billy Torrence on the list, but..... no Steve Torrence. Looking further ahead, his name doesn't appear on any of the pre-entry lists for the balance of the season either. There is one newcomer to Top Fuel, Kyle Satenstein, and entries from some of the part-timers, but the list or full time Top Fuel racers appears to be shrinking, not growin.

FUNNY CAR

In sharp contrast to the situation of the long skinny cars, Funny Car appears to be thriving, with 14 full-time competitors, and 15 cars, as Blake Alexander share driving duties with rookie Hunter Green in the second "Bond-Coast" team car. There's been a full at all 12 races so far this year, topping out at 21 entries for Norwalk. And the pre-entry lists for the balance of the season show full fields at every race. It looks like a very healthy situation for flopper fans, and the number of part time teams has only added to the competition. There are a half dozen racers that have run 3-second e.t.'s and are capable of turning those times at any race they enter.

So why is there such a difference in the fortunes of the two classes. Marketability of the Funny Cars is frankly greater than for Top Fuel dragsters. Larger "billboard" space on the bodies, more unpredictable performances and exciting runs grab the attention of even the most casual fans. And the bottom line is that the people who fund those operations are more inclined to invest their money in a Funny Car.

The latest update as of July 28, 2025

IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series - Darana Dragway - Milan, MI

The second of five scheduled events on the "new" IHRA 2025 calendar finished yesterday afternoon at the newly renamed Darana (formerly Milan) Dragway. While the fields weren't quite as big as at the first race of the season, and the spectator count was still low, it showed that the IHRA is not going to be a "one and done" deal. Next on the agenda is the return to Darana Raceway (formerly National Trail) in six weeks time for the next race. But if the racer entries don't increase, and more importantly, the spectator attendance doesn't see a major uptick, we've got to wonder just how much longer the series can continue.

The winners on Sunday at Milan were Lex "Nvr Quit" Joon in Top Fuel, taking out surprise finalist MItch King in the final. The front runner in the class, Scott Palmer smoke the tires on the launch in the semifinal and missed out on back-to-back wins in the series. The Funny Car crown went to Del Worsham, for his first IHRA win since 1995. He was runnerup to Mike McIntire in the Columbus race, but this time took the win over rookie Dan Hix. Coming from a fuel altered background, Hix made his first competition passes in a nitro funny car at this race and parlayed a series of 4-second e.t.'s, coupled with some big speeds, to put up a good fight in his first funny car race.

The Top Alcohol classes were similarly down on entries, with just two Funny Cars qualifying and seven Dragsters entered. All of the cars were solid performers, all with experience at the big NHRA races. Taking the FC title was Phil Esz, who was runnerup to Stan Sipos at the first race, while Tony Bogolo lost in the first and final round at Milan. The dragster show was dominated by top flight NHRA teams, with both Randy Meyer Racing cars in attendance (Megan and Rachel driving), Rich McPhillips Jr. and Will Smith in the Samsel Racing car. Taking the win in the final was Smith, as McPhillips went up in smoke immediately.

The doorslammer classes were well attended, with 24 Pro Mods qualified for a 32-car field. If the field had been cut off at 16 qualifiers, then the bump spot would have been a very stout 3.760, with the low e.t. qualifier (Robin Roberts) sitting atop the field at 3.639 - 208.43. The other Pro Mod class, Pro Nitrous had just seven entries, but six of them were in the 3-second zone, with low e.t. being a strong 3.731 effort by Tim Molnar. Mountain Motor Pro Stock had 13 racers, and top qualifier Jerry Tucker set the pace with a 4.104 - 175.37, with the next seven qualifiers all in the 4-teens.

Comparing the Milan entries with the first race at Columbus, saw Mountain Motor Pro Stock drop from 14 to 13, while Pro Mod jumped from 11 to 24, and Pro Nitrous picked up one from six to seven racers. Pro Stock was dropped from the schedule after just four racers showed at Columbus, and will only be reinstated when at least eight racers register for an event. The fuel classes saw Top Fuel drop from eight to five entries, while Funny Car fell from nine to six. The Top Alcohol classes saw the dragsters drop from eight to seven, while funny car went from eight to just two entries.

One real bright light from my perspective is the excellent camera and broadcast work of the races on IHRA.tv, a YouTube channel. Using a combination of drones, fixed and handheld cameras, made for a very good show, albeit with some major downtime when the weather didn't cooperate and when there were lags in the program due to low numbers of racers. The broadcast is certainly one aspect of the IHRA program that does not need any work at this point. And the purses are sitting there waiting to be taken by any racer willing to show up and try the "alternative" racing association.

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The latest update as of July 23, 2025

Nitro Chaos - Mo-Kan Dragway

NITRO CHAOS - "A" Field - Eliminations Round ONE

(LEFT) Eliminations opened with former (2023) series champion, Garry Wheeler (near lane), in the "Grand Prix" AA/FD facing the "Showtime" AA/FA of Donnie Massey in the far lane. Wheeler held a definite advantage with a 3.835 qualifying time, as opposed ot Massey's much slower 4.175. It was no contest right from the flash of the amber lights, as Wheeler took an instant tenth of a second reaction time advantage. He powered the dragster down track to his best of the event 3.833 - 196.85, while Massey broke before the christmas tree and coasted to a stop, far short of the finish line.

(RIGHT) Next up was the "Mighty Mouse II" AA/FA (near lane), with Anthony Whitfield driving, facing the Texas terrors (Darby & Morrow), with the "NItro Relapse". Driver Aaron Morrow qualified in the #4 spot with a great 3.853, but his hopes died quickly as the AA/FA lost fire at the end of the burnout. Whitfield took his time leaving the starting, with a .322 reaction time, but laid down a solid 4.079 - 183.75 to move into the semifinal round. Anthony had a rough time in qualifying with a best of 4.299, but the small-block Chevy powered car picked up the pace considerably in the opening round.

It was a Fuel Altered versus Funny Car match next, as John Umlauf wheeled his sinister looking "Mass Chaos" AA/FA (near lane), against the Mustang-bodied AA/FC of Indiana's Dave Hill. With Mad Maxine" directing the "Mad Max" car back to the starting line after the burnout the show picked up some serious glamour. It was quite a race with both cars dipping into the 3's, but Umlauf took the winlight with an excellent 3.756 - 202.89. Even though he left first, with an .049 to .082 r.t. advantage, Hill's 3.997 - 171.23 wasn't enough to stay with the Mass Chaos car. The photo on the right captures the big-time horsepower that Umlauf was laying down as seen with the copious amounts of clutch dust trailing the car.

The low qualifier, Jake "The Snake" Sanders, in the "Menace" AA/FD (near lane) took on the #5 qualifier, Cody Austin in the "Bushwhacker" AA/Fuel Altered in the far lane. On paper, Sanders had a quarter of a second e.t. advantage, but you know how the old cliche (the race is on the track, NOT on paper) goes, and that's what happened, as Austin left first by more than a tenth (.036 to .149) and ran away from Sanders with a much improved 3.763 - 203.25 to easily cover a trailing 4.007 - 161.12 as Sanders got off the throttle early.

NITRO CHAOS - "B" Field - Eliminations Round ONE

The "B" field racers ranged from the #9 qualifier (James Gilliland) to #17 (Brian Kohlmann). Dropping out of eliminations was Chuck Loftin, who broke after a mid 4-second run on Friday. Based on Gallegos' qualifying time of 4.437, the index for the field was set at 4.28.

(LEFT) The first pair of the round turned into a single, as Jeff Krug (far lane) in the big-block Chevy powered "Obsession" AA/FA shut off before staging. That left Dave Gallegos to make a bye run for the win in his "Nitro Clown" AA/Fuel Altered. He Made a quick squirt before shutting off just past the 60' mark, and coasted down track to a 6.348 -74.79. It wasn't pretty but it got the job done, and advanced him to the second round.

(RIGHT) It looked like a real "David vs Goliath" match next, but the AA/Street Coupe of Wisconsin's Brian Kohlmann (near lane) had showed some serious power at the previous event at Edgewater Sports Park, breaking into the 4's with a career best 4.457 - 167.54 clocking Helping make the happen was the "Niro Helper", Jerry Newman. Opposing him was the "Jailbreak" AA/FA of Wasson & Hunter, with Mark Hunter driving. Neither driver chopped down the tree, but Kohlmann's .112 reaction easily covered Hunter's .198 launch. From there to the finish line it was a super close race, with Kohlmann turning on the winlight by the slimmes .011 of margins. That made his slower 4.773 - 146.48 the winner over Hunter's quicker, but later, 4.697 - 124.62 effort.

(LEFT) Easily the best appearing car in the pits, the "High Heaven" Charger-bodied AA/Funny Car (near lane) of Keith Jackson was up next against the "Psycho Too" AA/FA (far lane) of Wilkens & Gilliland, with James Gilliland at the controls. Gilliland was the top qualifier in the "B" field but the index was an obstacle to running too quick, and Gilliland found out the hard way when his way-too-quick 3.927 - 177.44 broke out by more than a third of a second, making Jackson the automatic winner. The High Heaven didn't take it easy, stopping the timers with a solid 4.33 - 142.31 for the win.

(RIGHT) The round closed with the oddest pairing of the event. In the near lane was the "Nitro Monkey" A/FD, with a small-block Chevy on 100% nitro, with Paul Schultz in the cockpit. The far lane had the '63 Plymouth Belvedere Max-Wedge "Moparius Maximus" of Iowa's Larry Grenko making his Nitro Chaos debut. Neither driver qualified well, with both of them in lower 5-second zone, and it was more of the same when the ambers lit. The two cars left the line almost together, but Schultz pulled out the win with a 5.283 - 140.14 over Grenko's 5.590 - 124.52 clocking.

NITRO CHAOS - "A" Field - Eliminations Round TWO

(LEFT) The semifinals matched one dragster against three fuel altereds, and the first pairing featured one of each breed. In the near lane was Cody Austin in the "BushWhacker", holding lane choice over the far lane's "Grand Prix Auto Sports" dragster of Garry Wheeler. Austin left first by an .042 to .077 margin, and ran away from Wheeler to the tune of an awesome low e.t. of the meet 3.637 - 209.11 run to move into the final round. Giving it a good fight and recording his best e.t. of the weekend was Wheeler, as he stopped the clocks with an excellent 3.831 - 198.85 in the losing cause.

(RIGHT) The other semifinal pairing had two very quick AA/FA's paired up, with John Umlauf (near lane) in the "Mass Chaos" matched against Anthony Whitfield in the "Mighty Mouse 2", barely visible in the far lane. On the green, Whitfield left first by a BUNCH, with a .153 to .323 advantage. But it wasn't enough as he couldn't get into the 3's and could only clock a 4.084 - 177.17 against Umlauf's much quicker 3.879 - 181.23 winning time. The gap at the finish was barely a car length, with a winning margin of just .033 for Umlauf, but it was enough to advance him to the final round.

NITRO CHAOS - "B" Field - Eliminations Round TWO

(LEFT) The big question in this round was: could Brian Kohlmann (far lane) do it again and beat the AA/Funny Car of Keith Jackson? It wasn't looking good for Kohlmann early, as he left the line second and fell behind early, but he kept the pedal down and turned on the winlight with his quickest and fastest run of the event, a 4.586 - 164.65 to take the win over a slowing Jackson who faded on the top end to a 4.821 at only 109.73 mph. With that win Kohlmann advanced to his first final round and moved into the #10 spot in the Nitro Chaos points standings.

(RIGHT) The opponent for the Brian Kohlmann in the final would be determined by a breakout in the second matchup of the semifinals. Paul Schultz, in the far lane, held lane choice over Dave Gallegos (near lane) by more than a second, but it wouldn't matter as both lanes were more or less equal. The race looked over right from the starting line, as Gallegos left with a .108 light, while Schultz was nearly comatose with a very late .557 reaction time. But the win that looked almost automatic wasn't to be, as Gallegos didn't get off the throttle quickly enough at the finish line and his 4.235 - 130.93 was just a little too quick for the 4.28 index. Taking advantage of the faux pas, Schultz made a winning pass of 5.334 - 143.59 to move into his second consecutive final round.

NITRO CHAOS - "B" Field - Eliminations FINAL Round

The first final matched two of the most unlikely opponents in the entire field. In the near lane, Paul Schultz faced off against Brian Kohlmann in the far lane. The match looked like it was going to be a single for Schultz when Kohlmann's team had trouble firing the street coupe. They finally got it running, Brian did a short chirpie, and both cars staged. Kohlmann's car was barely running as he staged and looked to be a very lame duck. However, Schultz rolled the beams when he brought the revs up, turning on the redlight and making Kohlmann's cripped coupe the automatic winner. He limped down track to a 16-second clocking and headed for the Winners Circle.

NITRO CHAOS - "A" Field - Eliminations FINAL Round

The final race of the evening paired two AA/Fuel Altereds, and Cody Austin (near lane) had to be considered the heavy favourite based on his low e.t. 3.63 in the semifinals. But John Umlauf, in the "Mass Chaos" (far lane) had been in the 3-second zone all day and was a more than worthy opponent for the "BushWhacker" team. It looked like trouble for Austin when the car wouldn't back up after the burnout, but the crew pushed him back and he was able to pull forward to the staging beams. Umlauf left first by a .105 to .249 reaction time advantage. Umlauf opened up an even bigger gap with a .930 60' time, but just past the 330' mark, the flames went down and he coasted to a losing 3.904 at only 147.64 mph. Taking the final winlight of the evening was the Austin team with young Jody driving, as he stayed in the 3.60's with a winning 3.676 - 204.17 tiem.

The latest update as of July 22, 2025

Nitro Chaos - Mo-Kan Dragway

With all the action happening at Seattle (NHRA Northwest Nationals) and Edmonton (Rocky Mountain Nationals), we almost forgot that Dale Fackler was down at Asbury, Mo's Mo-Kan Dragway for the fourth of five Nitro Chaos on the 2025 schedule. Friday was VERY hot, with a humidex reading of nearly 106% and it took a lot out of men, women and machines. Compounding the conditions was the "less than optimum" lighting, hence the lack of a large quantity of photos.

(LEFT) Launching hard with the wheels up, the AA/FD of Wheeler & Brook, with Garry Wheeler at the controls, shut off early to a 4.458 at only 113.75 that put them on the ladder in the #8 spot.

(RIGHT) Making their second appearance of the 2025 season was the Texas team of Terry Darby & Aaron Morrow, with Morrow driving. The "Nitro Relapse" laid down an excellent 3.853 - 193.55 in the second session to grab the third rung on the ladder.

(LEFT) Coming into the event with the season points lead, the Indiana-based "Mad Max" AA/FC of Dave Hill looked to keep the top spot in the standings. His first qualifying attempt saw him get out of shape at the 330' mark, heading for the wall, forcing him to shut off very early, and stopping the clocks with a 4.782 - 103.23 that was only good enough for the #14 position, near the bottom of the "B" field.

(RIGHT) Closing out our Friday coverage was the familiar "High Heaven" entry of the Jackson family, with Keith Jackson driving. He didn't get all the power to the track as the scoreboard testified with a 4.542 - 134.89 showing.

We'll have Saturday's photos and details posted tomorrow. As always: stay tuned! And just before we received the photos from Mo-Kan, we found out that this coming weekend's Funny Car Chaos race at Byron IL's Byron Dragway has been postponed to August 15 - 16 due to another wet weather forecast. That makes more rainouts for the FCC series than completed events, in what is sadly shaping up to be a seriously snakebitten season.

The latest update as of July 19, 2025

36th annual Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals - Kent, WA

Day one of the Northwest Nationals is in the books. It was a day filled with some big hits and some equally large misses, but it was an entertaining and somewhat unique start to the abbreviated "Western Swing", aka "The West Coast Two-Step". Another full day of action is already underway at Pacific Raceways, with the opening rounds of eliminations for the sportsman happening as this update is being written. Then it's on to the final qualifying session for the Top Alcohol cars and the first of three qualifying sessions for the Top Fuel and Funny Car classes.

Three qualifying sessions in one day? The opening paragraph mentioned unique, and that's what it is, as the Pro Stock car and motorcycle clases ran their traditional first and second qualifiers on Friday, but the fuel cars ran a single session late in the day. It started with the national anthems (Canadian and American) being played at 9:45 pm, which must be a record for the latest "start" to a drag race. With excellent conditions of 65 (F) air temp, 88 (F) track temp, grip readings of 3210 Newton meters, expectations were high for some spectacular performances.

FUNNY CAR

Qualifying started with a single pass for rookie Dylan Winefsky that looked promising with a 4.317 - 236.14, but ended with the 1320' finish line timing blocks "doinked" and one stuck to the nose of the "Nitro Moose", things went sideways in a hurry. The next three pairs of cars failed to register an e.t. quicker than 7-seconds, before Chad Green put down a solid 3.928 - 329.75 effort. That was followed up with J.R. Todd taking over the top spot on the ladder with a slightly quicker 3.901 - 329.26 clocking.

However, that was it for the good times, as the final three pairs of the round, all Top Ten racers, couldn't get closer to the 3's than Austin Prock's 5.580 e.t. that garnered the #3 position in the field. The entire session, with two exceptions was decidely underwhelming. Making the lack of good runs even more perplexing was the strong performances of the natuarlly aspirated Pro Stock contingents. The top three cars in Pro Stock were in the 6.40's, led by Greg Anderson's very strong 6.472 - 211.29 pass, and the 13th car on the list clocked a very good 6.592 e.t. Pro Stock Motorcycle was similarly quick, with the slim 8-bike field all in at 6.854 and quicker, led by John Hall at a career best 6.717 - 201.76 timeslip.

TOP FUEL

By the time the Top Fuel cars hit the track, at 10:40 pm, the air temperature was down to 61 (F), and the density altitude was sitting at 828' (no other readings available. First out of the lanes was the local "hard trier", the Ron Smith team, with fill-in driver Cameron Ferre at the controls. Ron wasn't driving as he was nursing a broken foot, and A/Fuel veteran Kim Parker wasn't able to complete her license upgrade in time. Ferre's pass ended before the 330' mark as he shook and shut off. The first pair of the round saw also-local Shawn Reed pedal his way to a 4.14 - 277.09 that gave hope for some good passes as the heavier hitters proceeded to the head of the staging lanes.

That hope played out in the second pair of the session as Clay Millican laid down a very good 3.708 - 331.12 to grab the top spot away from Reed. That only lasted until Brittany Force crossed the finish line a few minutes later, with a tremendous 3.703 - 340.47 to obliterate the track speed record. And that wasn't the end of the fireworks as Doug Kalitta nearly took the track e.t. record with a tremendous 3.671 - 335.90 to leapfrog Force and take the top spot. But it nearly didn't hold up for low e.t. of the night as teammate Shawn Langdon came close with an almost equally excellent 3.689 - 332.92 in the final pair of the round.

With a short 11-car field, it didn't take too long to run the dragsters, and they did outperform the Funny Cars, as four of the 11 racers ran 3.70 or quicker, while just two of 17 funny car entrants ran in the 3.90's. A large disparity in results, and the track conditions should have been more or less equal for both groups. It will be very interesting to see just how the teams react to what could be very different conditions when they hit the track at noon today for the second round of qualifying.

TOP ALCOHOL

Carding the only 5-teen time of the day was Langley, BC's Shawn Cowie as he continues his quest to repeat as World Champion. His 5.164 - 279.44 ended the day at the top of the list, a full five hundredths ahead of perennial championship contender Jackie Fricke. With only one more qualifing session, scheduled for around noon today, keeping the #1 spot could be critical for Cowie. That would match him up against the bottom (#14) qualifier, currently Kim Parker, and if he can win his first round race, would give him a bye to the semifinals.

However, that might not be easy as it appears on paper (or on the computer screen), as some very tough cars are lurking in the top half of the field. Among them are some very quick blown alky drivers, with four of the top six running on alcohol. Hard running northwest driver Joey Severance is always a threat, and Arizona's Jon Bradford, in the electronic fuel injected entry is dangerous. Joining that group with career best numbers is Oregon's Mike Austin, a long-time Top Alcohol competitor who seems to have found some extra oomph with Mark Hentges helping on the tuneup. His second session 5.283 - 271.35 was his first foray into the 5.20's, and running back-to-back 270+ mph speeds has to be his best ever in that department.

The Alcohol Funny Car field is one of the shortest in the history of the class at the national event level. Just five cars are in the pits and one of them, Brian Hough seems absolutely snake-bit as he hasn't been able to get down the track in either of Friday's sessions. Tire shake on both runs left him at the bottom of the list, and that follows on last weekend's similar results at Woodburn's West Region event. He didn't get out of the 10's on any of his three qualifying passes, and could only manage to pedal his way to a 6-flat clocking in a losing effort in the first round of eliminations.

The next update will be later this afternoon. Stay tuned for that!

3:00 PM UPDATE

The first "fast" class to appear was the Top Alcohol gang. There were 14 cars in the field and all except Randy Eakins appeared for the final qualifying session. With no bump spot, the #14 qualifier (Kim Parker) came into the round with a 7.958 e.t. on the board. It didn't take long for that number to approve as Kim lumbered down the track, with at least one cylinder out, to a 5.853 - 253.56 that wasn't enough to get her off the bottom rung on the ladder. As the session progressed, the e.t.'s kept falling, with a slew of 5.20's lighting up the scoreboards.

At the end of the session, only two of the 13 drivers had improved on their Friday e.t.'s. One of the highlights of the round was another pair of career bests for Mike Austin, as he dipped further into the 5.20's with an excellent 5.268 - 272.78 that moved him up to the #6 position in the field. Another serious improvement saw 5-time World Champion Joey Severance join Shawn Cowie in the 5-teens with a great 5.196 - 276.46 to move to the #2 slot. Another blown alky entrant, Jon Bradford, picked up half a tenth to take over the #4 spot with a strong 5.224 - 267.22, to make three of the top four and four of the top six qualifiers being of the blown alcohol variety.

The session concluded with Shawn Cowie lowering his low e.t. of Friday with an even better 5.162 - 279.67 to put an exclamation mark on his top qualifying performance. The top half of the field (the top seven) came in at 5.272 and a total of nine racers were in at 5.292 or better. From that point to the bottom of the list, the numbers fell off rapidly, ending with Kim Parket at the bottom with her 5.853 pass.

That's all we have time for today and the sun is shining and we've got a bunch of friends coming over for Happy "Hour". Ciao!

The latest update as of July 14, 2025

IHRA Nitro Outlaw Series - Darana Raceway - Hebron, OH - July 10-13

To paraphrase a quote from Julius Caesar: Veni, Vidi, Vici, aka We Came, We Saw, We Conquered. That very aptly applies to the winners of the first real nitro race for the IHRA since 2010. Full fields in Top Fuel and Funny Car produced some good racing as the track improved after each qualifying session and round of eliminations.

Photo courtesy of IHRA

After a three month layoff since his last outing at Las Vegas, Scott Palmer and his hard-working crew qualified at the top of the field with the only 3-second run of the Friday qualifying sessions. They followed that up with the first 300 mph run of eliminations, enroute to a win over Chuck Loftin, with a solid 3.934 - 300.86 to earn a semifinal matchup against Doug Foley. Following Palmer's first round run, Foley blitzed the timers with a record-setting 3.825 - 321.88 to earn lane choice for their second round pairing.

The tables turned however, when Foley lost traction early and Palmer kept the flames up until just past the 660' mark, before stopping the clocks at 4.201 - 211.53. Despite the less than perfect run, Palmer earned lane choice over Krista Baldwin with his 4-second timeslip. Due to the rain delay and the subsequent late semifinals, the final round was postponed until Sunday morning. The track was ready for the racers and Palmer took the win with a solid 3.958 - 314.24 effort over Baldwin's close 4.125 - 293.28 pass.

As you can see from the winners circle photo, the jubilant team celebrated their biggest win ever in the sport, with 50,000 reasons to be very happy with what they accomplished. It went without saying that they are already entered for the next race on the schedule at Milan Dragway, just two weeks from now.

Photo courtesy of IHRA

It was a similar scenario in the Funny Car class, with Mike McIntire Jr. starting from the #1 qualifying position, with a very good 4.073 - 309.34, and parlayed that into three winning runs to take the trophy and the big ($50,000) cheque. In the first round of eliminations, the "Mac Attack" team took out a Nitro Chaos regular, Jody "Bush Whacker" Austin with low e.t. of the round, a 4.064 - 308.00 to easily cover an early shutoff 5-second effort from Austin.

In the semifinals, the matchup with veteran Jack Wyatt turned wild when Wyatt's chutes shook out early in the run, while McIntire was smoking the tires. Seeing Wyatt's plight, McIntire got back on the loud pedal, still smoking the tires, but able to get past Wyatt at the 660' mark. Wyatt got back on the throttle too, but he was unable to catch McIntire's 6.645 - 171.58 pass, falling short with a 7-second clocking.

Lane choice for the final went to Del Worsham, by virtue of his low e.t. (4.063) and top speed of the meet (317.79) win over Terry Haddock in the semifinal. Despite the odds being stacked against him, McIntire and his crew, led by long-time nitro tuner Tony Shortall, got back in their comfort zone with a solid 4.166 - 293.41 holeshot win over the Worsham team. Del's quicker and faster 4.160 - 306.56 fell just short by virtue of his .062 to .042 reaction time, making it an .014 winning margin for McIntire. A truly great end to the first nitro Funny Car race at an IHRA event in 15 years.

Photo courtesy of Henry Len

Coming seemingly out of nowhere after his last appearance at the NHRA U.S. Nationals last Labor Day, Victoria, BC Canada's Stan Sipos got past some very tough competitors to take an extremely well deserved victory in his debut event of the 2025 season. It was also his first national event win since the 1992 NHRA Reading Nationals. Tuned by fellow Canadian, Les Davenport, the team qualified solidly in the middle of the field with a very good 5.635 - 261.22 pass.

That gave him lane choice over Kyle Smith in the first round of eliminations. Sipos left the starting line nearly a tenth of second behind Smith, but overcame the initial deficit with a strong 5.565 - 262.64 to take an ultra-slim three thousandths of a second victory. It was good enough to give him lane choice over top qualifier Sean Bellemeur, driving the dreaded "Killer B's" injected nitro entry. Sipos again had a better reaction time, carding an .096 to Bellemeur's uncharacteristically late .114 leave. The race was all but over when Bellemeur shook the tires, pedalled, then failed to catch Sipos as he streaked away to a 5.586 - 261.93 for the win, while Bellemeur trailed badly at 6.292 - 243.02 mph.

Going into the final round, Sipos didn't have lane choice as opponent Phil Esz had laid down low e.t. of the meet at 5.531 in winning his semifinal race against D.J. Cox, driving the Wayne Morris car. The final turned into a titanic match as both racers recorded their quickest e.t.'s of the event, and the two quickest overall, but Sipos turned on the winlight with an excellent 5.505 - 264.03 to take the victory away from Esz's slightly quicker 5.496 - 262.28. The difference was in reaction times as Sipos recorded an .094 to Esz's .107 for a margin of just four thousandths of a second at the finish line.

The win was special for Stan Sipos as it marked his return to the front ranks of Alcohol Funny Car racing, and for Les Davenport as he crew chiefed and tuned the two finalists. He did his best for both teams and in the end it was reaction times that made the difference in the money round. And speaking of money, the $7500 winners purse was more than NHRA pays the winner of a 16-car national event field. It will be very interesting to see how many alky funny cars show up at Milan Dragway next weekend. Stay tuned for that!

The latest update as of July 8, 2025

IHRA posts final pre-entry list for Top Fuel and Funny Car

There's a total of eight Top Fuel racers and ten Funny Car entrants on the list. Even though they never showed up on the IHRA Facebook page, Del Worsham, Mike McIntire Jr., Joe Morrison and Alex Barker are confirmed entries. They are in addition to the previously announced Dale Creasy Jr., Jack Wyatt, Terry Haddock, Joey Haas, Dave Gallegos, and Jody Austin. Of the eight entries, six have appeared on at least a part-time basis at NHRA national events, while four (Barker, Gallegos, Austin, and Haas) have been regular entrants at Funny Car Chaos and Nitro Chaos events.

On the Top Fuel side, all eight entrants have been previously announced on the FB page. The list started with Krista Baldwin, followed by Scott Palmer, then Doug Foley. All three have run numerous NHRA events and dipped well into the 3's. Another trio of three second capable racers, Lex Joon, Cameron Ferre and Will Smith were announced later, followed by Mitch King and Chuck Loftin on the final list. While an all 3-second field is not going to happen, it will be a competitive group of racers offering some good racing for the fans.

Even though only two Top Alcohol racers were featured on the IHRA Facebook page, we found a list of the 11 dragsters and 8 funny cars entered. Some big names are listed in both categories, starting with Sean Bellemeur (back in the A/Fuel car) in Funny Car. He's joined by a number of NHRA regulars: Phil Esz, Stan "where have you been this year?" Sipos, Kyle Smith, Melinda Green-King, Tony Bogolog, Ray Drew, and D.J. Cox.. All have been successful at NHRA races and should make for a very competitive field.

In Top Alcohol Dragster it's Brandon Greco, Megan Meyer, Rachel Meyer, Richie McPhillips, and John Ausherman. All are regular competitors at NHRA national events, with Greco winning the Charlotte 4-Wide Nationals earlier this year, and McPhillips taking three national event wins in 2021. The Meyer sisters have both won the World Championship in TAD, with Megan taking back-to-back titles in 2019 & 2020, while Rachel took the crown in 2021. Neither has competed at an NHRA event since then, concentrating their efforts on Nitro Chaos races while the Randy Meyer team has used a variety of drivers at NHRA races over the past four years.

Another serious contender for the event win is Jackie Fricke, who has yet to win the championship, but finished runnerup to the champion twice, and in the top five in the standings for the past five seasons. Other racers on the list are blown alky runner Dan Dietrich, Canadian Jeff Chatterson, Earl Nichols Jr. (preseumably in a McPhillips car), Mike Coughlin, who finished in the NHRA Top Ten for the past three seasons (in a Samsel Racing entry), and Eric Hendenberg. All in all, quite a few top notch racers are going to be in the field.

More updates on the IHRA season opener as soon as they become available.

The latest update as of July 6, 2025

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - Twisted Shifterz Summer Nationals - Cordova Dragway

This is the opening "salvo" of the second qualifying session at the recently (sort of) completed Funny Car Chaos event at Cordova Dragway. We're just starting to work on the Friday fotos from the race, but all of Saturday's pictures and most of the captions and reports are already posted in the Features section of this website. Go here to see the race report.

Yet another update from the IHRA FB page. They now have a full field of 8 drivers entered in Top Fuel. Latest to be confirmed is Will Smith, driving Luigi Novelli's "National Machine Repair" car. Shortly after, Jody Austin in the "Bushwhacker" nitro funny car was announced as entered on the IHRA FB page. That brings the total confirmed entries in Funny Car to SIX. Stay tuned for more updates as the clock strikes midnight tonight for the pre-entry list.

The latest update as of July 5, 2025

IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series entries for season opener keep growing

While the IHRA Facebook page is a little slower with the news than Competition Plus or Funny Car Chaos, they are in sync as of this morning. The latest additions to the ever-growing list now includes Cameron Ferre (not sure who's car he's driving), Doug Foley, and Mitch King. According to the Funny Car Chaos Facebook page, Chuck Loftin is entered. Again, we're not sure which car he's piloting. That brings the Top Fuel pre-entries to six, including the earlier ones: Scott Palmer and Krista Baldwin. A little more sleuthing through Facebook pages revealed that Canadian Kyle Satenstein will be entered, driving the Leverich Family dragster.

Nitro Funny Car is really getting crowded if all the announcements from FCC about their racers entering turn out to be correct. Racer entries already posted on the IHRA FB page are Dale Creasy Jr., Jack Wyatt, Terry Haddock, Dave Gallegos, and Joey Haas. Competition Plus is listing Del Worhsam, Mike McIntire Jr., Jody Austin, and either Tod or Alex Barker. All in all, it adds up to NINE possible/probably entries in Funny Car, and FIVE in Top Fuel.

UPDATE #1: We just re-read the Competition Plus story from earlier in the week and we missed two names from the Top Fuel list (they have not yet been confirmed by IHRA). Competing with his own car is Lex Joon, and driving the Luigi Novellia entry is Will Smith, who just missed qualifying at Norwalk. Both racers ran in the 3-second zone at that event, by the way. That brings the (un)confirmed Top Fuel entry list to SEVEN racers.

UPDATE #2:It's now been confirmed via a new posting on the IHRA Facebook page that Chuck Loftin and Lex Joon are now officially entered in the National Trail Raceway event. That makes a confirmed total of SEVEN entries in Top Fuel.

While there may be full or nearly full fields in the nitro categories, so far Pro Mod has just four racers confirmed, while Top Alcohol has just one dragster and one funny car on the official list. Both the alky entrants are NHRA World Champions, but with a $7500 to win, and $2000 to qualify purse on offer (more than NHRA pays), there should be quite a few entries added before Sunday night's deadline. The final entry lists will be announced on Monday, July 7th. Stay tuned for that!

The latest update as of July 4, 2025

HAPPY BIRTHDAY U.S.A.

July 4, 1776 - July 4, 2025 - 249 YEARS

The latest update as of July 3, 2025

Sad news as the passing of Jerry "The King" Ruth is annnounced

There's too many of these in memoriam announcements coming out these days. At times it seems like all my heroes are dying or have already passed. And now, here comes another one. The number of stories and recollections and anecdotes showing up everywhere, on websites and Facebook, are frankly incredible. All good memories and some great photos. While I didn't have a camera handy when I watched Jerry racing back in the 70's and early 80's, I've got some indelible memories of seeing him at my first drag race, at the old Mission Raceway in June of 1972.

Ruth went up against a tough field of Canadian and American racers, and came out on top with best numbers of the WCS (World Cham,pionship Series) meet with incredible (for the time) numbers, highlighted by his final round 6.20 - 235.00 winning pass against "Gentleman" Hank Johnson. At the time, Jerry was running the dragster and a Funny Car, and despite setting low e.t. and top speed in the flopper during qualifying, he fell to Twig Zeigler in the semi-final to end his string of double duty victories.

Throughout the 70's I saw him race at Mission, Bremerton, and Seattle during what seemed to me like the "golden age" of drag racing. In the early 2000's I saw him with his cackle car at the Northwest Nationals, saw him helping Mark Hentges with a short-lived sojourn into an injected nitro combo that was quickly shelved, and enjoyed reminiscing about his exploits through old National Dragsters, videos, and Facebook postings.

Sadly, Jerry Ruth's time passed on July 1st, but we have many, many happy memories that will stay with us forever. R.I.P. Jerry "The King" Ruth.

The latest update as of July 2, 2025

The NHRA national event schedule has a two week break between events before the (abbreviated) "Western Swing", which could be more accurately renamed the "West Coast Swing". After back-to-back races at Seattle and Sonoma, there is another two week break before the final two events of the "regular" season, starting in Brainerd, MN and concluding at Indianapolis, IN for the 71st edition of the "Big GO", aka the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals.

So where does the IHRA Nitro Outlaw Series fit into this scenario? With no NHRA national event next weekend, the first of five Nitro Outlaw National events on the IHRA schedule won't have any competition for racers or spectators. And when the second event, at Milan, MI runs at the end of this month, the NHRA tour will be on the West Coast. Again, good timing for the IHRA. The only race on their calendar that conflicts with an NHRA event is in late September at Dragway 42 in West Salem, OH while the NHRA is at St. Louis for the Midwest Nationals, just 500 miles away.

The announced entries for the PRO classes at the National Trail Raceway event are rather slim so far, with only two Top Fuel racers, Scott Palmer and Krista Baldwin on the list. Today a third Funny Car showed up - hold on a fourth racer just appeared on the IHRA Facebook page, with Dave Gallegos, Terry Haddock, Jack Wyatt, and Dale Creasy Jr. all ready to compete for the $50,000 winner's purse. The payout for runnerup is a generous $25,000, while semfinalists receive $20,000 and first round losers still garner a solid $15,000. In addition, there is a $7,500 payout for each of the first four alternates. If those numbers don't capture people's attention, then they're simply not... paying attention.

In other categories, just one Top Alcohol Dragster, Megan Meyer is entered, while four Pro Mod racers are on the list: Frankie "Mad Man" Taylor, Zach Sackman, Chris Cline, and Craig Sullivan. The Pro Mod racers will also be competing for a $50,000 winners purse, but runnerup "only" pays $10K, and the numbers drop to just $1,500 for first round losers in the 32-car field. Of interest is that they will be running 1/8-th mile, while the nitro cars will be going 1000' and the Top Alcohol racers the full quarter mile.

Any fuel racers that aren't heavily sponsored or realistically challenging for event wins should be seriously looking at running with IHRA, especially when their events aren't competing with the NHRA. Racers that fill the bottom of the field at an NHRA race or have trouble qualifying for those races should bring their cars to events where they don't have to compete with the mega-buck racers at the top of the "food chain". And for racers that are still trying to sort out their equipment and get on top of tuneups, the IHRA events are a great place to learn how to make competitive runs on decent tracks with much less pressure than at the "Big Show" races.

Racers like Joe Morrison, Scott Farley, Cameron Ferre, Terry Totten, Mike McIntire Jr., Chris King, Jim Campbell, Smax Smith, Phil Burkart, Rit Pustari all could benefit by getting some track time and going home with a decent paycheck. And the teams that have shown 3-second potential or visited that rarified zone, like Lex Joon, Kyle Wurtzel, Will Smith, Todd Paton, et al, can likewise benefit from making more passes and refining what they already have shown at the NHRA races. Note that all of the racers listed above reside in the eastern half of the continent and wouldn't have to travel very far to attend the Outlaw Series events.

With nine days to go before qualifying starts at Columbus, we're looking forward to seeing just how many racers throw their hats in the ring and make the trek to National Trail. We'll keep updating the entries on this page as they are announced.

UPDATE: Two more entries have rolled in, both funny cars, one burning methanol and the other one on nitro. The first Top Alcohol Funny Car entered is Sean Bellemeur, the four-time and defending NHRA World Champion. He's the highest profile racer to throw his helmet in the ring for the Outlaw Nitro Series. The fifth nitro funny car racer to join in is Joey Haas, familiar to Funny Car Chaos and Nitro Chaos fans. He's brining the "Nimrod" AA/FC to a bigger stage for the first time and based on his results in FCC events, should be very competitive.

The latest update as of July 1, 2025

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA!

July 1, 1867 - July 1, 2025 - 158 YEARS